U.S. imposes sanctions on an Iranian foundation over Salman Rushdie’s bounty
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Raven Ruma
- . October 29, 2022
- . Update: November 11, 2022 1:16 am
The United States has imposed sanctions on an Iranian foundation, accusing it of issuing a multi-million dollar bounty for the killing of American-British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie.
On Friday, the United States Treasury Department said it had designated the Iran-based 15 Khordad Foundation a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, accusing it of issuing a bounty on the novelist after the 1989 call for his execution. The sanction freezes any U.S. assets belonging to the Iranian foundation.
According to the US authorities, the Iranian foundation increased the bounty in 2012 to $3.3 million. Brian Nelson, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, condemned Iran over the attack on author Salman Rushdie. Nelson reportedly said, “The act of violence, which has been praised by the Iranian regime, is appalling. We all hope for Salman Rushdie’s speedy recovery after the attack on his life.”
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Rushdie was attacked on stage at an event in western New York state in the United States in August. A man stabbed him in the neck and torso at the event. According to police, Rushdie’s assailant, a 24-year-old man identified as Hadi Matar, had images of Iranian commander Qassem Solemani, who was assassinated in 2020, on his smartphone. Currently, he is being held without bail in a jail in western New York.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding his death over his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses”. Some Muslim scholars said that some passages in the novel about the Prophet Muhammad were blasphemous. They said that his writing was considered disrespectful to the Prophet Mohammed.
After the fatwa was issued, Rushdie, who was born in India to a Kashmiri Muslim family, spent nearly nine years under police protection in the United Kingdom (UK).
