Britain defends Rushdie honour as protests flare

London, June 20 (Reuters) Britain defended today its decision to award a knighthood to British author Salman Rushdie after Muslims worldwide complained that honouring the author of ''The Satanic Verses'' was offensive to Islam.

Muslims say the novel, published in 1988, blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad and ridiculed the Koran.

Britain's interior minister John Reid said the right to free speech was ''of over-riding political value'', while foreign minister Margaret Beckett called the award by Queen Elizabeth part of a trend of honouring Muslims in the British community.

Rushdie, born to Muslim parents in India, was awarded the knighthood last week for services to literature -- prompting diplomatic protests from Pakistan and Iran and triggering angry demonstrations on Wednesday in Pakistan and Malaysia.

In the central Pakistani city of Multan about 300 people chanted ''Death to the British Queen'' and ''Death to Rushdie''. They burned a British flag and effigies of Queen Elizabeth and Rushdie.

In Islamabad, a pro-Taliban cleric said Rushdie should be killed.

''Whosoever is in position to kill him, he should do so,'' Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a cleric at the capital's hardline Red Mosque, said in a statement.

Several hundred people including members of the provincial parliament protested in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

And in Cairo, an Egyptian parliament committee urged the Egyptian ministry of foreign affairs to ask British officials to reconsider the knighthood ''out of concern for the feelings of the people of Islamic countries and for the love of peace''.

About 30 supporters of Malaysia's hardline Islamic party protested outside the British embassy in Kuala Lumpur chanting ''Destroy Salman Rushdie'' and ''Destroy Britain''.

''This has tainted the whole knighthood, the whole hall of fame of the British system,'' the party's treasurer Hatta Ramli told reporters.

Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents also condemned the knighthood for the ''apostate'' British writer.

In London, Foreign Secretary Beckett told a news conference the award to Rushdie ''is part of the pattern, that people who are members of the Muslim faith are very much part of our whole, wider community ... and they receive honours in this country in just the same way as any other citizen.'' ''UNTIMELY'' Home Secretary Reid, answering a question after a lecture in New York, said that there were also films which had been considered offensive to Christians and Jews.

''We have to be sensitive to the views of people of religion, people who have very strong views,'' he said.

''But I think that we all appreciate that in the long run our protection of the right to express your views in literature, argument, politics, is of over-riding political value to our societies,'' Reid said.

The Pakistani parliament adopted a resolution on Monday deploring the knighthood, and the religious affairs minister said the honour could be used to justify suicide bombings. He later said he did not mean such attacks would be justified.

The late Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa death warrant against Rushdie in 1989, forcing him into hiding for nine years.

In 1998 Iran's government formally distanced itself from the fatwa death warrant issued by Khomeini, but hardline groups in Iran regularly renew the call for his murder, saying Khomeini's fatwa is irrevocable.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said during a visit to London that the award was ''untimely''. ''I think it would be used by many quarters to exploit this issue outside this context,'' he said, standing by Beckett's side at a news conference.

Reuters RS DB2309