Rushdie’s Incarceration
In response to “No Place for Rushdie in New World Order?” by Gerald Marzorati, Commentary, July 16:
A call from Amnesty International to its members releases a flood of thousands of letters to government officials on behalf of a “prisoner of conscience.”
Apparently, there is no similar mechanism for protesting the involuntary “incarceration” of author Salman Rushdie in Great Britain.
Even if there were, would such an action result in the immediate lifting of the death sentence (imposed by a decree from the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in February, 1989) from Rushdie and those associated with the publication of “The Satanic Verses”?
Probably not since, as Marzorati points out “. . . Rushdie’s fate is not at issue in the new world order. . . .”
But it should be. Unless, of course, international law and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights are to be early victims in the world’s reordering.
SUSAN WALTERS
Redlands
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