(Published on: September 17, 2012) – A regime-affiliated religious foundation in Iran has boosted $500,000 the bounty it had offered for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3 million from $2.8 million, after protests around the world over alleged insults to the prophet Muhammad, who is considered holy in the Islamic world.
The 15 Khordad Foundation reportedly will pay the higher bounty to whoever acts on a 1989 fatwa issued by Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which called for the death of Rushdie, the author of “The Satanic Verses,” because the novel was considered blasphemous to Muslims. Rushdie is also an apostate from Islam, making it almost impossible that the Islamic death sentence would ever be lifted.
The Iranian newspaper, Jomhoori Eslami, indicated that the increased bounty was the decision of another ayatollah, Ayatollah Hassan Saneii, who heads the 15 Khordad Foundation.
“As long as the exalted Imam Khomeini’s historical fatwa against apostate Rushdie is not carried out, it won’t be the last insult. If the fatwa had been carried out, later insults in the form of caricature, articles and films that have continued would have not happened,” Ayatollah Saneii told the newspaper.
The 15 Khordad Foundation is named for the date on the Iranian calendar when the Ayatollah Khomeini was arrested in Iran and subsequently forced into exile. The actual date is June 5th, 1963.
The 15 Khordad Foundation is a “bonyad,” which are charitable trusts in Iran that play a significant role in Iran’s non-petroleum economy, controlling an estimated 20% of Iran’s GDP. Exempt from taxes, they reap “huge subsidies from the regime, while providing limited and inadequate charity to the poor.
Source » shariahfinancewatch