Pakistani parliament demands apology over Rushdie

ISLAMABAD, June 22 (Reuters) Pakistan's parliament renewed a call today for Britain to withdraw a knighthood for author Salman Rushie and apologise for hurting Muslim feelings.

Rushdie, whose 1988 novel ''The Satanic Verses'' outraged many Muslims around the world, was awarded a knighthood for services to literature in Queen Elizabeth's birthday honours list last week.

Pakistan and Iran have protested against the honour and the Pakistani parliament condemned it in a resolution on Monday.

The National Assembly lower house of parliament passed another resolution today expressing dismay Britain had not reversed its decision.

''The British government has not withdrawn the title which has not only disappointed the entire Pakistani nation but has also hurt it,'' Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi told the assembly.

''This august house again calls on the British government and its Prime Minister Tony Blair to immediately withdraw the title... and tender an apology to the Muslim world.'' Muslims say Rushdie's novel blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad and ridiculed the Koran.

Britain has defended the knighthood, stressing the importance of free speech and saying it was part of a trend of honouring Muslims in the British community.

At least five people were killed and scores wounded in protests against the book in the Pakistani capital in 1989.

Two days after that, the late Ayatollah Rohallah Khomeini, Iran's supreme religious leader, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling on Muslims to kill the Indian-born British writer, who spent the next nine years living in hiding.

Small demonstrations have been held in Pakistan this week and Islamists have called for more protests today.

A group of hardline Muslim clerics said yesterday it had bestowed a religious title ''Saifullah'' (Sword of Islam) on Osama bin Laden in response to the knighthood for Rushdie.

Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq, son of Pakistan's late military president Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, told the assembly this week that if someone committed a suicide bombing to protect the Prophet Mohammad's honour, his act was justified.

He later said he did not mean such attacks were justified but was merely saying militants could use the knighthood as a justification for violence.

A hardline cleric called on Wednesday for Rushdie to be killed and the next day the speaker of the Punjab provincial assembly said blasphemers should be killed.

A group of traders in Islamabad yesterday offered a reward of 10 million rupees (165,000 dollars) to anyone who killed Rushdie.

REUTERS SKB VV1510