The below letter by writers and campaigners, including Taslima Nasrin and Salman Rushdie, will be submitted to the EU today when Mina Ahadi meets with delegates about the need for a condemnation of and investigation into writer and Islam critic Rafiq Tagi’s assassination:

Rafiq Tagi, the prominent writer and critic of Islamism, Islam, the Islamic regime of Iran and the Azerbaijani government received multiple stab wounds on his way home on 19 November. He seemed to be recuperating, even doing an interview where he said the attack may have been organised by the regime in Iran. However, he took a turn for the worse and died. Some are concerned that security at the hospital was lax and that he could have been poisoned.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has denied any role in his murder even though in 2006 Ayatollah Lankarani issued a death fatwa against him. Ayatollah Lankarani’s son (whose father has since died) saluted Tagi’s murder; the Islamic regime of Iran’s paper gleefully wrote ‘Azerbaijan’s Salman Rushdie is dead.’

We, the undersigned, call on the EU to condemn the killing and send a mission to investigate Rafiq Taqi’s death. The truth surrounding his murder must come to light.

Mina Ahadi
Nick Cohen
Richard Dawkins
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasrin
Salman Rushdie
Joan Smith