Iran summons UK envoy to protest Rushdie honour

TEHRAN, June 19 (Reuters) Iran's Foreign Ministry today summoned Britain's ambassador to Tehran to protest against the knighting of author Salman Rushdie, calling it a provocative act, the official IRNA news agency said.

''This insulting, suspicious and improper act by the British government is an obvious example of fighting against Islam,'' Ebrahim Rahimpour, Foreign Ministry director for Western Europe, told British Ambassador Geoffrey Adams, IRNA said.

Rushdie's novel ''The Satanic Verses'' prompted the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa death warrant against him in 1989.

Rushdie, who lived in hiding for nine years, was awarded the knighthood for services to literature in Queen Elizabeth's birthday honours list published on Saturday.

''It has seriously wounded the beliefs of 1.5 billion Muslims and followers of other religions ... we hold the British government and queen responsible for the circumstances of this provocation, which caused the anger of Muslims,'' Rahimpour said.

IRNA quoted Adams as saying the knighting of Rushdie was a cultural, not a political, act.

The Islamic Republic's government formally distanced itself in 1998 from the original fatwa against Rushdie, issued by Khomeini who said the book committed blasphemy against Islam.

Khomeini died in 1989.

But shortly after it disavowed the death edict under a deal with Britain, Iranian media said three Iranian clerics called on followers to kill Rushdie, saying the fatwa was irrevocable.

REUTERS KN SBA BST0144