His defense of Ayatollah Khomeini's theocratic government in Iran, which he compared favorably to the rule of the Shah, elicited some criticism. In 1989, Myrdal publicly distanced himself from Swedish intellectuals who condemned Khomeini's death sentence against the author Salman Rushdie for blasphemy in "The Satanic Verses". Myrdal argued that although Rushdie should enjoy freedom of speech and belief, Khomeini's fatwa was formally a correct expression of Islam in the Iranian context and the pro-Rushdie campaigns served anti-Muslim and imperialist interests.