Satanic Verses Protest
These photographs are from the large and violent protest that took place in Westminster in May 1989 calling for the banning of the book “The Satanic Verses” and the death of its author, Salman Rushdie.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia:
The Satanic Verses controversy, also known as the Rushdie Affair, was the heated and frequently violent reaction of Muslims to the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, which was first published in the United Kingdom in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. Many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief and in 1989 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Numerous killings, attempted killings, and bombings resulted in response to the novel.
The issue was said to have divided "Muslims from Westerners along the fault line of culture," and to have pitted a core Western value of freedom of expression—that no one "should be killed, or face a serious threat of being killed, for what they say or write" - against the view of many Muslims — that no one should be free to "insult and malign Muslims" by disparaging the "honour of the Prophet”. English writer Hanif Kureishi called the fatwa "one of the most significant events in postwar literary history".
In February 1989 Rushdie was forced into hiding after a call by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini for Rushdie and all those associated with the book to be put to death for blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed. For the next decade Rushdie lived in fear, while what became known as the “Rushdie affair” continued to play out nationally and internationally.