dollars this week, saying the Islamic world would not now be suffering insults like the recent crude video on the Prophet Mohammad if Rushdie had been killed years ago.
Rushdie, meanwhile, condemned the insulting video as “garbage” and also condemned rioters for killing people who had nothing to do with the video.
The 15th of Khordad Foundation first offered a reward for Rushdie’s death soon after Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed his death fatva on the author in 1989. The foundation progressively raised the award to $2.8 million the late 1990s and there it has remained.
But on Sunday, it said it was boosting the reward to $3.3 million in a renewed effort to encourage someone to knock off the Indian-born writer.
Hassan Sanei, the long-time head of the 15th of Khordad Foundation, made clear that the boost in the reward was prompted by the video that insults the Prophet. “As long as the historic fatva of Imam Khomeini is not carried out, that won’t be the last insult,” he said. “If the fatva had been carried out earlier, later insults in the form of cartoons, articles and films would never have happened.”
The Iranian government has always put distance between itself and the fatva. From just days after the fatva was proclaimed on Valentine’s Day 1989, the government said it was a religious proclamation and not a government decree, explaining that as a result the government would do nothing to bring about Rushdie’s death.
Rushdie condemned both the video and the riots opposing it. He called the video “stupid” and the violent protests “disgusting.”
He said the video, which is available on YouTube, “looks like the worst little clip ever made,” but remarked that there can be no justification for responding to it with “mayhem and murder.”
In an interview with India’s NDTV channel, Rushdie homed in on the rioters’ premise. “This idea that somehow America is responsible for the deeds of every American is a stupid mistake—and in this case a fatal mistake.” He called it “disgusting to attack and murder people who have nothing to do with it.”
He called the video “highly manipulative,” apparently concluding that those who made it wanted to provoke riots. The original English language video was posted on the Internet last year but drew no attention. An Arabic language version was posted recently and that is what sparked the rioting.
Rushdie, now 65, told another Indian channel that a “harsher, less tolerant Islam” has evolved in his lifetime, with young people living in poverty attracted to “jihad” to give them a sense of purpose in life.
In an interview with BBC Radio, Rushdie called the video “garbage” but said the rioting in opposition to it is “an ugly reaction that needs to be named as such.”
Rushdie defended freedom of expression, saying there is “no trick to defend stuff you agree with. It’s when you have to defend something that you despise and loathe that you realize you believe in freedom of speech.”