England Responds to Rushdie Controversy

Jun 19, 01:25 PM

Current Headlines: A British official told Pakistan that England is concerned over a minister's comment that Salman Rushdie's knighthood could justify suicide bombings.

British High Commissioner to Pakistan Robert Brinkley made clear the British government's deep concern at what the minister for religious affairs was reported to have said, a Foreign Office spokesman said and the Guardian reported. The British government is very clear that nothing can justify suicide bomb attacks.

Brinkley met with Pakistani officials in Islamabad Tuesday.

The knighthood for the author of The Satanic Verses has created an uproar in Pakistan, with the parliament calling for the decision granting it to be reversed and effigies of Rushdie and the queen of England being burned. Many Muslims considered The Satanic Verses blasphemous and the author lived in hiding and under protection after a fatwa was issued by Iran's spiritual leader in 1988.

It is simply untrue to suggest that this in anyway is an insult to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad and we have enormous respect for Islam as a religion and for its intellectual and cultural achievements, Brinkley said in a statement, the Guardian reported.