Knighthood of Salman Rushdie All other aspects were for the main committee to examine. The British Foreign Office, which has a permanent secretary on the main committee, announced that there had been no requests to gauge possible Muslim reaction to the knighthood. It was noted that Rushdie's 13 books have won numerous awards, including the Booker Prize for "Midnight's Children" in 1981, the Booker of Bookers prize, the Whitbread novel award (twice), and the James Tait Black memorial prize. PEN International had been a constant supporter of Rushdie being honoured, believing that awarding the author (born in India) would be "seen as a positive
Salman Rushdie at the last minute after the government pressured the festival to stop it. Rushdie returned to India to address a conference in Delhi on 16 March 2012. In 2010 Anwar al-Awlaki published an Al-Qaeda hit list in "Inspire" magazine, including Rushdie along with other figures claimed to have insulted Islam, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, cartoonist Lars Vilks and three "Jyllands-Posten" staff members: Kurt Westergaard, Carsten Juste, and Flemming Rose. The list was later expanded to include Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, who was murdered in a terror attack on "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris, along with 11 other people. After the attack, Al-Qaeda