ABSTRACT; After recalling the death sentence inflicted by the Iranian "Mullahs" on writer Salman Rushdie, the text deplores the fact that Italy still has relations with Iran for economic and commercial reasons.

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 28 October 1993)

February 1989: Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic republic of Iran, sentences writer Salman Rushdie to death. Rushdie had written a book, "The Satanic verses", which the Mullahs, the priests of Iranian Shi'ite fundamentalism, judged to be blasphemous.

"The leader of a sovereign state that is a member of the UN" - comments Marco Taradash, then president of the Radical Party's federal council - "issues a death sentence against a citizen of another state, without any trial, and in the name of its religious powers orders unknown followers scattered around the world to carry out the sentence". It is an unprecedented fact. "The international reaction must be equally strong", Taradash concludes. The radicals immediately organized solidarity campaigns for Rushdie and demonstrations against Teheran. On 16 February the European federalist deputies asked the Italian government to suspend all economic and military relations with Teheran.

But Italy preferred not to give up profitable business with the regime of the Mullahs; other Western governments had a slightly different reaction. Since then, to avert Khomeini's death sentence, the writer has been hiding in a secret place in Britain, protected by the police and the British security services.