Mahshid Amirshahi Harvard University, and has written dozens of articles mostly in Persian with occasional contributions to publications such as "Newsday" (USA) and "Les Temps Modernes" (France) in English and French. One of her notable political stands while in exile has been her instigation of the declaration of the Iranian intellectuals and artists in defence of the British author Salman Rushdie, who had become the object of a notorious manhunt owing to the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against him and his book "The Satanic Verses". Mahshid Amirshahi was one of the founders of the "Comité de défense de Salman Rushdie en
Salman Rushdie to live under police protection for several years. On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy. When, on BBC Radio 4, he was asked for a response to the threat, Rushdie said, "Frankly, I wish I had written a more critical book," and 'I'm very sad that it should have happened. It's not true that this book is a blasphemy against Islam. I doubt very much that Khomeini or anyone else in Iran has read the book or more than selected extracts out of context.' Later, he wrote that he was "proud,