MOVIES - June 7, 1990

Rushdie Death Film Banned: Britain’s opposition Labor Party called Wednesday for a ban on a fictional Pakistani film that depicts the death of British author Salman Rushdie. “International Guerrillas,” which portrays Rushdie as a decadent, pro-Israeli playboy dedicated to the overthrow of Islam, has been playing to packed houses in Pakistan. The real Rushdie has been in hiding since Iran’s late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, told British Muslims to kill him, charging that his novel “The Satanic Verses” blasphemed Islam. Labor Party spokesman Donald Anderson said that the film, in which the fictional Rushdie is eventually struck down by bolts of lightning in a tropical island hideout, could hurt race relations in Britain.