World IN BRIEF : IRAN : Rafsanjani Assails West Over Rushdie
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani accused the West of resurrecting the Salman Rushdie affair, saying the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s death call against the author of “The Satanic Verses” for blaspheming Islam was merely an Islamic scholar’s viewpoint, Tehran Radio said. Rafsanjani, who leads the pragmatist camp among Iran’s ruling clerics, charged that the West is biased against Iran because it interprets Islam as a system of government and tries to spread the ideology beyond its borders.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
