Facing Down the Assassins : Rushdie’s unending ordeal calls for renewed support for him and for religious freedom

The Iranian hostage crisis is not over. One hostage, Salman Rushdie, is still denied the freedom of his own country, Britain, by Iranian religious terrorists and their sympathizers among Muslims living in the West.

Three and a half years after publication of “The Satanic Verses,” Rushdie’s satirical novel, Iran is stymied. Britain, albeit grumpily on occasion, has stood by him and faced down his would-be assassins.

Rushdie himself, rising to an artistic challenge of extraordinary difficulty, has managed not to make his dilemma his obsession. What he has written about his unique captivity is of genuine interest as well as of immense pathos, but he has managed, increasingly, not to write only of it.

Meanwhile, Iran, which struggles to lead a double life, has its cover blown every time Rushdie’s name returns to the headlines.

That happened most recently when the Khordad 15 Foundation, a state-run welfare agency in Iran, renewed the bounty on Rushdie’s head--and raised it to $2 million.

The announcement reminds Muslims in the West who might wish to claim the same freedom enjoyed by the adherents of other religions living in the West that at least one ex-Muslim has managed officially to be ex- .

True, Rushdie, having dropped out, dropped back in and then dropped out again. But such journeys are allowed and even honored in the West as spiritual explorations. It is not so, obviously, in Iran, where an officially identified apostate may, with impunity, be executed by any Muslim.

The barbarism of Iran’s religious bounty hunters comes as a useful reminder that Iran’s aggression has had other targets. Christians and animists in the Sudan, Kurds and Bahais in northern Iran have all felt the mullahs’ fury.

Against this background, Washington, no less than London, must reassert its support for Rushdie and for religious freedom.