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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (478143)	5/5/2009 8:07:49 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1575380

Depends on which Wiki. page you look at -- below is the one that covers specifically the Rushdie incident. It is totally consistent with my recollection, which I paid careful attention to at the time. The bottom line is that he fully supported the death sentence, but after the fact tried to back out of it. The issue of his funding terrorism is more of a gray area in that he hasn't been caught red-handed. However, several intelligence agencies believe has been involved in it. =========================================== On February 21, 1989, Yusuf Islam addressed students at Kingston University in London about his conversion to Islam and was asked about the controversy in the Muslim world and the fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie's execution. He replied, "He must be killed. The Qur'an makes it clear - if someone defames the prophet, then he must die." [4] Newspapers quickly denounced what was seen as Yusuf Islam's support for the assassination of Rushdie and the next day Yusuf released a statement saying that he was not personally encouraging anybody to be a vigilante,[1] and that he was only stating that blasphemy is a capital offense according to the Qur'an. However on March 8, 1989, while speaking in London's Regents Park Mosque, Yusuf Islam was asked by a Christian Science Monitor reporter how he would "cope with the idea of killing a writer for writing a book." He is reported to have replied: In Islam there is a line between let's say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It's got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again. Two months later Yusuf Islam appeared on a British television program, BBC's Hypotheticals, an occasional broadcast which featured a panel of notable guests to explore a hypothetical situation with moral, ethical and/or political dilemmas. In the episode, ("A Satanic Scenario") Stevens/Islam is recorded having this exchange with moderator and Queens Counsel Geoffrey Robertson:[5][6] Robertson: You don't think that this man deserves to die? Y. Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie? Robertson: Yes. Y. Islam: Yes, yes. Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner? Y. Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act - perhaps, yes. [Some minutes later, Robertson on the subject of an protest where an effigy of the author is to be burned] Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned? Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing The New York Times also reports this statement from the program: [If Rushdie turned up at my doorstep looking for help] I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is.[7] The content of the broadcast was reported in the New York Times on May 23, 1989,[7] a week before the show's planned airing. Also reported was that several Muslim participants complained about the way the show was edited, leaving out the interpretations of Islamic law on which they were basing their responses to the hypothetical question posed. [7] en.wikipedia.org