Iranian media outlets add $0.6m to bounty for killing Salman Rushdie

In this photo, taken Jan. 29 , 2013, author Salman Rushdie attends a promotional event of “Midnight’s Children” in Mumbai, India. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade, File)

Iranian state-run media outlets have added $600,000 to a bounty for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie, imposed in 1989 over the publishing of his book “The Satanic Verses”.

The leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, that called on Muslims to the kill the author after his book was condemned as blasphemous, forcing him into years of hiding.

Iranian hardliners say Khomeini’s decree is irrevocable and eternal after his death. A wealthy Iranian religious organisation offered $2.7 million reward to anyone carrying out the fatwa. In 2012, the amount was increased to $3.3 million.

According to the semi-official Fars news agency, 40 Iranian news outlets added to the pot. Fars itself earmarked $30,000.

“These media outlets have set the $600,000 bounty on the 27th anniversary of the historical fatwa to show it is still alive,” Mansour Amiri, organiser of a digital technology exhibition at which the money was announced this month, told Reuters.

There has been no further comments or reaction from the author Salman Rushie nor Iran’s Foreign Ministry.