Cat Stevens Live Earth Headliner: A death-to-Rushdie kind of guy

Yusuf Islam or Cat Stevens as he is known to us in the Western world wanted Salmon Rushdie dead in 1989 upon the publication of The Satanic Verses. He supported a fatwa issued by the ayatollah and has never looked back hoping the modern world would soon forget his disdain for the rights of others. The prize-winning author of Midnight's Children refreshes everyone's fading memory.

However much Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam may wish to rewrite his past, he was neither misunderstood nor misquoted over his views on the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses (Seven, April 29). In an article in The New York Times on May 22, 1989, Craig R Whitney reported Stevens/Islam saying on a British television programme "that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, 'I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing'.''

He added that "if Mr Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, 'I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is'.''

In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Mr Whitney added, Stevens/Islam, who had seen a preview of the programme, said that he "stood by his comments".

Let's have no more rubbish about how "green" and innocent this man was.

Salman Rushdie, New York

Apparently Al Gore didn't get the memo. After all climate change -- and not terrorism -- is the most pressing issue to the self-indulgent hypocrites worried about global warming. Who knew that Al Gore would be so sentimental about the vindictive heirs of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini?