Amis defends Rushdie knighthood amid protests

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) - Author Martin Amis on Thursday defended Britain's decision to honor Salman Rushdie with a knighthood, saying the right to free speech should not be sacrificed to religious sensitivities.

He said Rushdie, who turned 60 this week, would be reminded of the "misery" of nine years he spent in hiding after Iran's leader issued a death edict against him over his 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses", deemed by many Muslims to be blasphemous.

"I'm sure it never occurred to the committee that recommended the award that there would be this kind of reaction," Amis told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Once the fuss began, then you felt a bit naive for thinking that there wouldn't be one. But that wasn't its intention."

Following the publication of Queen Elizabeth's birthday honors list on Saturday, Iran's foreign ministry director for Western Europe called Rushdie's knighthood "an obvious example of fighting against Islam".

Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq, Pakistan's religious affairs minister, called for the knighthood to be withdrawn and for Britain to apologize to all Muslims, and small demonstrations have taken place in parts of Pakistan and Malaysia.

Muslims say "The Satanic Verses" blasphemed against Prophet Mohammad and ridiculed the Koran.

"We all know the tactic of failing or failed states like Pakistan and Iran to distract attention from more proximate difficulties by invoking an enemy of Islam," Amis said.

"The original intention of the (late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini in 1989 was to win a local political battle with this distraction."

The row over Rushdie's honor follows the far more violent fallout after the publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005.

Amis said artists were less likely to tackle the subject of religion after the September 11 attacks on the United States, since when he argues that a more radical and reactionary voice of Islamism has drowned out that of moderate Islam.

"I think there is a great deal of self-censorship (in the arts)," Amis said. "People are sitting on their hands. I think that tendency should be resisted. That is giving ground.

"The tradition of free speech ... is in danger to people who lose their nerve and feel for various ridiculous reasons that religion is in a special sanctuary and not open to the kind of questioning that we give to everything else."