“To be sure, if Imam Khomeini’s fatwa had been carried out, the subsequent insults in the form of cartoons, articles, and films would not have happened,” said Hassan Sanei, head of the 15 Khordad Foundation, according to the Iranian Student News Agency. “The death sentence of Salman Rushdie, an apostate, was issued with the aim of drying up the roots of anti-Islamic conspiracies, and now it is only through this fatwa that we can neutralize the vengeful conspiracies.”