Iranian Hard-Liners Still After Rushdie

Iranian hard-liners said Sunday that the 1989 death sentence ordered against British novelist Salman Rushdie remained in effect, despite the Iranian government’s statements more than a year ago that appeared to lift it, a radio report said.

The decree by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini remains in force, “and nothing will change that,” the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said, according to an Iranian radio report monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. on the eve of the anniversary of the “fatwa,” or religious edict.

After Khomeini announced the sentence on Feb. 14, 1989, claiming Rushdie had blasphemed Islam in “The Satanic Verses,” the 52-year-old Rushdie spent nearly a decade in hiding under police protection.

He emerged from his shadowy existence in September 1998 when Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi announced the country was distancing itself from a $2.5 million reward promised for Rushdie’s death.

Muslims have said before that the fatwa cannot be lifted formally, but the Iranian government’s decision did ease the threat to Rushdie.