The World - News from March 15, 1989

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut and other U.S. writers presented a petition signed by more than 1,500 writers worldwide urging the U.N. Security Council to protect Salman Rushdie from a death sentence issued by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini accuses Rushdie of engaging in blasphemy against Islam in his book “The Satanic Verses.” But it appeared highly unlikely that the U.N. council would champion Rushdie’s cause and antagonize Iran, which has agreed to U.N.-mediated peace talks after its war with Iraq. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the issue of whether to support Khomeini’s stand was referred to a committee of the 46-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference despite an appeal by Iran for “all Muslims to uphold God’s judgment in this connection.”