Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: September 20, 2002
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/020920/43/1vfyi.html
Angry protestors took out a rally
against cricket icon-turned-politician Imran Khan's wife Jemima here Friday
for allegedly adopting controversial writer Salman Rushdie as a guide.
Protesters threw shoes at posters
of Jemima Khan and torched them at a rally outside the Masjid-e-Shuhada
here, demanding that her Pakistani citizenship be revoked for seeking guidance
from a blasphemer of Islam, Online news agency reported.
In 1988, Rushdie earned the ire
of Muslims across the world for writing "The Satanic Verses," which some
in the community say depicts Prophet Mohammad in a poor light.
A fatwa, or Muslim edict, was issued
against Rushdie by Iran's religious head Ayotollah Khomeini in 1989, in
which the late leader "sentenced to death" the author for writing a book
against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran.
The protestors called upon clerics,
particularly the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal -- a six-party Muslim religious
alliance -- to join the movement urging the cancellation of Jemima Khan's
citizenship.
They urged the government to cancel
her citizenship and called upon religious parties and clerics to voice
their protest against Jemima's alleged act of seeking guidelines from the
damned Rushdie.
They also wanted Jemima to be expelled
from Pakistan.
Last week, Imran Khan, who heads
the Tehreek-e-Insaf party, had announced Jemima would serve as an ambassador
of Islam to the West.
