Salman Rushdie September 2012. Joseph Anton was Rushdie's secret alias. In February 1997, Ayatollah Hasan Sane'i, leader of the bonyad panzdah-e khordad (Fifteenth of Khordad Foundation), reported that the blood money offered by the foundation for the assassination of Rushdie would be increased from $2 million to $2.5 million. Then a semi-official religious foundation in Iran increased the reward it had offered for the killing of Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million. In November 2015, former Indian minister P. Chidambaram acknowledged that banning "The Satanic Verses" was wrong. In 1998, Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami proclaimed the fatwa “finished”; but it
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie world. Conferment of a knighthood on Salman Rushdie shows an utter lack of sensitivity on the part of the British government." They also told him that Rushdie's knighthood is a breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1624, which calls on all member states to "enhance dialogue and broaden understanding...[to prevent] the indiscriminate targeting of religions and cultures". Responding to the summons Ambassador Brinkley said "that the honour was not meant to offend Muslims". He also voiced Britain's "deep concern" at the comments by Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Muhammad Ijaz-ul-Haq about suicide bombers telling them that "nothing can justify suicide