It should be remembered that the first serious wave of Islamist terrorist attacks against those…
The spokesperson of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Marzieh Afkham, has condemned in strong terms the terrorist attack against the Charlie Hebdo journal in Paris. There is no more cynical attitude that the one of the Tehran regime.
It should be remembered that the first serious wave of Islamist terrorist attacks against those responsible for ” blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed” were the result of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini February 1989 fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, in response to his depiction of the prophet in his book “The Satanic Verses.” Here is a non-comprehensive list.
The United Kingdom was the country where violence against bookstores occurred most often and persisted the longest. Two large bookstores in Charing Cross Road, London were bombed on 9 April. In May, explosions went off in the town of High Wycombe and again in London, on Kings Road. Other bombings included one at a large London department store (Liberty’s), in connection with the Penguin Bookshop inside the store, and at the Penguin store in York. Unexploded devices were found at Penguin stores in Guildford, Nottingham, and Peterborough.
In the United States bombings of book stores included two in Berkeley, California. In New York, the office of a community newspaper, The Riverdale Press, was destroyed by firebombs, in retaliation for an editorial defending the right to read the novel, and criticizing the bookstores that pulled it from their shelves.
On 11 July 1991 Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death and Ettore Capriolo, its Italian translator, was seriously wounded by assailants.
In October 1993 the novel’s Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was shot and seriously injured.
In Turkey, thirty-seven intellectuals and locals participating in the Pir Sultan Abdal Literary Festival died when the conference hotel in Sivas was burnt down by a mob of radical islamists. Participating in the conference was Aziz Nesin, who had previously announced that he was going to get the book translated and published. The mob demanded he be handed over for summary execution. Nesin escaped the fire and survived.
On 14 February 2006, the Iranian state news agency reported that the fatwa will remain in place permanently. In 2012, Hassan Sanei, the head of the state-funded 15 Khordad, raised the bounty on Rushdie’s head by $500,000 to $3.3million ($2million).
In February 2014 Iranian mullah Hassan Sanei said: “Surely if the sentence of the Imam had been carried out, the later insults in the form of caricatures, articles and the making of movies would not have occurred” and he proclaimed that the death fatwa against Salman Rushdie “is as fresh as ever for Muslims.”
Salman Rushdie reported that he still receives a “sort of Valentine’s card” from Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him.
Senior Research Scholar, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel Dr. Ely Karmon is a Senior Research Scholar at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. He lectures on International Terrorism and CBRN terrorism at the M.A. Counterterrorism Studies at IDC. He holds a B.A. in English and French Culture from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1964), a Licence in International Relations from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and a Licence in Bantu languages from the Ecole de Langues Orientales, in Paris (1969). He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Haifa University (1996). Associate Fellow, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), London. Member of the International Permanent Observatory (IPO) on Security Measures during Majors Events at the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), Turin, Italy. In this framework he participated in UN seminars preparing security at Athens Olympics (2004), Turin Winter Olympics (2006) and Beijing 2008 Olympics. Dr. Karmon briefed Shanghai authorities on security and threat assessment for the Expo 2010 event. Member of the General Assembly of the International Institute for Security and Cooperation, Sofia, Bulgaria. International Expert to the Civil Military Disaster Medicine Committee of the International Disaster Medicine Association (IDMA), Naples, Italy. Member of the Editorial Board of Revista Universitas/Relaçoes Internacionais, journal of the Centro Universitário de Brasília – UniCEUB. Dr. Karmon is member of the Atlantic Forum of Israel and is involved in NATO workshops on terrorism and on the Mediterranean Dialogue. Visiting fellow (2002) at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which published his policy memorandum Fight on All Fronts? Hizballah, the War on Terror, and the War in Iraq (December 2003). Has been Fellow at the Proteus Management Group (PMG), a think tank focusing on future scenarios at the Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA. Served as advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the Anti-Semitism Monitoring Forum of the Israeli Government Secretariat. His fields of research include political violence, international terrorism, CBRN terrorism, and the strategic influence of terrorism and subversion in the Middle East and worldwide. Has written extensively on international terrorism and strategic issues of the Middle East and has participated in numerous international conferences. His book Coalitions between Terrorist Organizations: Revolutionaries, Nationalists, and Islamists was published in May 2005 by Brill Academic Publishers (Leiden and Boston). The Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College, published his monograph, ‘Iran–Syria-Hizballah–Hamas: A Coalition against Nature. Why does it Work?’ (May 2008). Dr. Karmon is a frequent commentator on Middle Eastern issues in the Israeli media (Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Israeli TV channels, Kol Israel, i24News TV), for the Spanish daily El Imparcial and numerous media outlets worldwide.