The Satanic Verses controversy in 2000. Meanwhile, in America, the director of the Near East Studies Center at UCLA, George Sabbagh, told an interviewer that Khomeini was "completely within his rights" to call for Rushdie's death. In May 1989 in Beirut, Lebanon, British citizen Jackie Mann was abducted "in response to Iran's fatwa against Salman Rushdie for the publication of book the Satanic Verses and more specifically, for his refuge and protection in the United Kingdom". He joined several Westerners held hostage there. Two months earlier a photograph of three teachers held hostage was released by Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine with
Ruhollah Khomeini disputed. He was "Time" magazine's Man of the Year in 1979 for his international influence, and Khomeini has been described as the "virtual face of Shia Islam in Western popular culture". In 1982, he survived one military coup attempt. Khomeini was known for his support of the hostage takers during the Iran hostage crisis, his fatwa calling for the murder of British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, and for referring to the United States as the "Great Satan" and Soviet Union as the "Lesser Satan." Khomeini has been criticized for these acts and for human rights violations of Iranians (including his