Subject: from TRANSNATIONAL - Satyagraha - No 10
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X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List
Newsletter of the Radical Party
HONORARY CITIZENSHIP TO SALMAN RUSHDIE
The Radical Party and the organization Nessuno Tocchi Caino (Hands Off
Cain) are promoting an initiative addressed to Italian municipalities
aiming at having them grant honorary citizenship to the anglo-indian
writer. The initiative was started in Turin and has involved several other
Italian cities.
February 14, 1995 marked the sixth anniversary of Khomeni's "fatwa" with
which he sentenced writer Salman Rushdie to death, accusing him of
publishing a blasphemous book, "The Satanic Verses". The Rushdie case falls
within a general problem which is very topical at this moment in our
history. The intolerance, fanatism, religious and ideological
fundamentalism characterizing many Islamic fundamentalist groups, in many
North African and Middle Eastern Arab countries, strike first of all
against those who would encourage dialogue, those who believe in a tolerant
form of Islam that is different from religious fanatism.
These forces are at the same time critical of the politics of the secular
regimes in the Arab world, from Algeria to Egypt, who are responding to the
terrorist emergency undermining their stability with the death penalty.
The attack in Egypt against Nobel prize winner Naguib Mafhuz demonstrates
how champions of this more tolerant type of Islam are being targeted.
