February 13, 1997 Times of London
Bounty on Rushdie raised to $2.5 million
A SHADOWY Iranian foundation yesterday increased the reward for the murder of Salman Rushdie by $500,000 to $2.5 millionand said that even non-Muslims would be eligible to collect the bounty.
Britain swiftly denounced the move as as an "outrageous infringement" of the British author's fundamental rights and rejected attempts by President Rafsanjani to distance his Government from the offer.
The Foreign Office dismissed suggestions that the 15 Khordad Foundation, a Qom-based charitable trust, was independent and said: "We call on President Rafsanjani specifically to condemn the bounty and to provide the European Union with those written assurances which we seek."
Mr Rushdie, who has been under threat of death since the late Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed a fatwa over his book The Satanic Verses on February 14, 1989, described the bigger reward as "just a cost of living increase". But he said it showed how Europe's attempts to negotiate with the "gangster state" had been a complete failure. He urged European politicians to stop "bending over backwards" to appease Iran.
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MICHAEL A. HOFFMAN II COMMENTS:
What a farce! The "gangster states" of Europe have allowed revisionist writers to be nearly fatally beaten (Faurisson), jailed (David Irving, H. Schmidt, Gunter Deckert) assassinated (Francois Duprat) and tortured and mutilated (Michael Caignet).
Irving and Faurisson are under repeated threats of death. Faurisson was brutally beaten in Sept. of 1989 by members of the Zionist terror gang, Betar. The French police and government demonstrated no interest in apprehending the assailants even though there were witnesses and leads. In Toronto the police investigation into the destruction by arson of revisionist publisher Ernst Zundel's home is also a non-starter, with investigators displaying nearly complete apathy toward the leads and evidence that have surfaced in the case.
In the U.S. both the misnamed Jewish Defense League and Jewish Defense Organization planted bombs in revisionist offices, in the offices of Arab-American writers (Alex Odeh) and shot at revisionists such as Tom Marcellus.
None of this terrorism has ever been an issue with the American intelligentsia, media moguls or government.
The hue and cry about Salman Rushdie is a propaganda farce intended to blacken the Muslims and all other opponets of Zionism.
Rushdie is a hypocrite of the worst stripe, for he has never raised his voice in defense of revisionist writers under attack. He has no solidarity with threatened writers of the wrong politics and school of history.
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THE TIMES OF LONDON ARTICLE RESUMES:
...The increase in the bounty was announced in the hardline Jomhuri Islami newspaper, which reported Ayatollah Sheikh Hassan Sanei, the head of the 15 Khordad Foundation, as saying that anyone who killed the "apostate" writer could claim the reward, including non-Muslims and his bodyguards.
The International Rushdie Defence Committee said the new offer increased its concern. "Obviously we are alarmed," the group's secretary, Carmel Bedford, said. But Rushdie denied reports that his security had already been stepped up. It was already tight, and there was no pressure on him to retreat. "My view is that you don't defeat such threats by running away. It is important to show that life goes on."
President Rafsanjani insisted that the foundation's move did not concern his Government. "I don't know what their motive was, but the government's policy towards the (Rushdie affair) is the same as before, and one which we have repeatedly announced," he said.
But Britain has been increasingly concerned at the level of killings by Iranian agents overseas,and is now pressing for a sharp signal to Tehran that it must curb terrorism.
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HOFFMAN'S COMMENT:
And the British government reacted in this manner on the same day (Feb. 12) that the Jewish military bombed a radio station in Lebanon, deliberately targeting it as the Israelis themselves admitted, as well as bombing Lebanese villages.
But of course this is not "terrorism" when the Jews bomb media facilities. In the local Spokane, Washington "Spokesman-Review" fishwrap, the notice of the Israeli bombing was in the newspaper's back page, in a couple of cosmetic paragraphs at the bottom of the page. The Israeli bombing is a "raid," a "strike," sanitized bloodshed of no interest to the "human rights crusaders" and "terrorism-fighters" in the U.S. and Britain.
As for killings by Iranian agents overseas, why would Iran curb such violence when the Mossad (Israeli secret police), has routinely engaged in such killings of its Arab political opponents to applause, not sanctions, from the West?
Remember, the Iranians know how cheap is Muslim blood in the eyes of the West.
Take for example the recent confirmation hearings of Anthony Lake for head of the CIA. When it looked like Lake's fortunes were beginning to recede, the White House decided to launch an offensive on Mr. Lake's behalf, to prop up his credibility. Here's how the Clinton administration did it, according to the N.Y. Times:
"The White House is worried about 'a right wing smear campaign' against Mr. Lake. It is counter-attacking, talking him up as a man so tough-minded that he lost no sleep when a U.S. missile aimed at Iraqi intelligence headquarters went awry and killed civilians in 1994." (N.Y. Times, Feb. 3, 1997, p. 12).
There is the naked reality underscoring all this human rights palaver: it is a badge of heightened credibility, something to brag about, when a top U.S. government official can boast that he "LOST NO SLEEP" over THE DEATHS OF MUSLIM CIVILIANS IN IRAQ.
This was the White House strategy for helping Mr. Lake get confirmed as head of the CIA! And they presume to lecture Iran about "human rights" concerns?
This writer condemns death threats against Rushdie AND Faurisson. The Iranians are disgracing themselves and their nation by such tactics but they are not as disgraceful as France, England, Germany, Canada, Australia and the U.S. who all allow Israeli agents and Jewish terrorists to do their dirty terror work in secret. At least the Iranians are honest about their intentions; not so the Israelis and their Aryan-Zionist allies in the West.
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THE TIMES OF LONDON article continues:
Although not supporting the sanctions demanded by Washington, the Government has moved closer to the American view that Iran is a main sponsor of international terrorism and a danger to world peace.
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HOFFMAN'S COMMENT:
You mean a danger to Eretz Israel, do you not, Mr. Times of London reporter?
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THE TIMES OF LONDON article continues:
Britain's condemnation of Iran over the Rushdie bounty was supported by its European partners, and the Government will find powerful support for a tougher line. Germany, in particular, is disillusioned with the results of its controversial political opening to Iran. Prosecutors at a trial in Berlin have accused the Iranian Government of ordering the killings of three Kurdish dissidents and if the verdict, expected soon, directly implicates the Iranian government, the EU policy of "critical dialogue" could become untenable.
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HOFFMAN'S COMMENT:
Ha, the Bonn "Germans," Europe's leading jailers of writers, who have tried Belgian translator Carlos Porter in absentsia, imprisoned 69 year old Hans Schmidt for 5 months in Butzow prison for writing newsletters in Florida (!) and sentenced Max Planck chemist Germar Rudolf to years in jail, all for their research and intellectual endeavors--no crimes of violence are alleged--and here the Germans are set up as some kind of moral conscience and judge of what the Iranians are doing. What a laugh! Have the Germans disengaged from "critical dialgoue" with the Israelis, after the assassinations of Arab dissidents carried out by Mossad and the IDF in the past three years? Not very likely, is it?
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THE TIMES OF LONDON article continues:
That policy was launched at the Edinburgh summit in 1992 when Iran appeared eager to put the Rushdie case behind it and woo the Europeans. Tehran promised not to send any hit squads to kill Mr Rushdie, and offered some countries specific guarantees that no attempt would be made to kill him or his publishers on their territory.
Agreement broke down, however, because Tehran refused to lift the fatwa, insisting that a religious edict by Ayatollah Khomeini could not be repealed. Britain believes the "critical dialogue" has failed because Iran has not changed its policy in three vital areas: the Rushdie case, human rights and terrorism, and the attempt to acquire nuclear weapons.
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HOFFMAN'S COMMENT:
When will the Israelis change their policies toward: the Vanunu case, human rights and state terrorism, the for-Jews-only-settlements, the Palestinian Bantustans and the secret nuclear facility in the Negev? Why can't the fatcats running the Western establishment and media, be a little consistent and leave the Iranians alone, for they are certainly no worse and definitely a good deal more honest, than their malodorous Israeli, European and American critics. --Michael A. Hoffman II
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