Tag: Salman Rushdie attacked

  • Iran says Rushdie and supporters in charge for assault

    Salman Rushdie and his supporters are the one individuals in charge for Friday’s assault on the novelist, Iran’s Foreign Ministry stated on Monday.

    Rushdie is recovering after being stabbed repeatedly at a public look in New York state.

    Freedom of speech doesn’t justify Rushdie’s insults in opposition to faith in his writing, ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani instructed a information briefing.

    The Indian-born author has lived with a bounty on his head because the publication of his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” which is seen by some Muslims as containing blasphemous passages.

    In 1989 Iran’s then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling on Muslims to kill the novelist and anybody concerned within the e book’s publication.

    The Iranian authorities stated in 1998 it will now not again the fatwa, and Rushdie has lived comparatively overtly in recent times.

    “Salman Rushdie exposed himself to popular outrage by insulting Islamic sanctities and crossing the red lines of 1.5 billion Muslims,” Kanaani stated.

    “During the attack on Salman Rushdie, we do not consider anyone other than himself and his supporters worthy of reproach, reproach and condemnation…No one has the right to accuse Iran in this regard.”

    He stated Iran had no different details about Rushdie’s assailant besides what had appeared in media.

  • Man with knife can’t silence man with pen: New York State Governor Kathy Hochul on assault on Rushdie

    New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has condemned the “cowardly attack” on writer Salman Rushdie, asserting that “a man with a knife cannot silence a man with a pen.”

    “New York State will always stand up to protect freedom of expression, freedom of speech and we condemn the cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie,” Hochul stated Sunday in remarks on the Chautauqua Institution, the western New York literary group the place Rushdie was stabbed Friday by 24-year outdated Hadi Matar of New Jersey.

    Hochul was on the Chautauqua Institution simply two days after the assault on Rushdie that surprised the tranquil Chautauqua group in addition to the US and the world.

  • Suspect’s father refuses to discuss Salman Rushdie assault

    The father of the person charged with making an attempt to homicide creator Salman Rushdie has refused to discuss the assault.

    Salman Rushdie was attacked by Hadi Matar whereas giving a lecture in western New York (Photo: File)

    The father of the person charged with making an attempt to homicide novelist Salman Rushdie has locked himself in at his house in southern Lebanon and is refusing to talk to anybody, city mayor Ali Tehfe stated on Sunday.

    The suspect in Friday’s assault in New York state has been recognized by police as 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey. He has pleaded not responsible. Matar is initially Lebanese and his household comes from the south Lebanon city of Yaroun.

    Tehfe stated his mother and father emigrated to the United States and Matar was born and raised there, however his father returned to Lebanon a number of years in the past.

    “His father is in the country now but he has locked himself in and is not accepting to give any kind of statement to anyone. We tried with him, we sent people, we went and knocked on the door but he is not agreeing to speak to anyone,” Tehfe informed Reuters.

    An official from the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah stated on Saturday the group had no further info on the assault on Rushdie.

    “We don’t know anything about this subject so we will not comment,” the official informed Reuters, talking on situation of anonymity.

    Hezbollah is backed by Iran, whose earlier supreme chief, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989 pronounced a fatwa, or non secular edict, calling upon Muslims to kill Rushdie for blasphemy.

    When requested if Matar or his mother and father have been affiliated with or supported Hezbollah, Tehfe stated he had “no information at all” on the political beliefs of the mother and father or Matar.

    Indian-born Rushdie, 75, was off a ventilator and his situation was bettering, his agent and a son stated on Sunday.

    READ | Salman Rushdie occasion host thought assault was ‘unhealthy prank’

    READ | ‘Barbaric, surprising’: Voices in solidarity with Salman Rushdie

    — ENDS —

  • Prosecutor: Stab assault on Salman Rushdie was ‘preplanned’

    The man accused within the stabbing assault on Salman Rushdie pleaded not responsible Saturday to tried homicide and assault costs in what a prosecutor referred to as a “preplanned” crime, because the famend creator of The Satanic Verses remained hospitalised with severe accidents.

    An lawyer for Hadi Matar entered the plea on his behalf throughout an arraignment in western New York. The suspect appeared in courtroom sporting a black and white jumpsuit and a white face masks, together with his fingers cuffed in entrance of him.

    A decide ordered him held with out bail after District Attorney Jason Schmidt instructed her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in place to hurt Rushdie, getting an advance go to the occasion the place the creator was talking and arriving a day early bearing a pretend ID. “This was a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack on Mr Rushdie,” Schmidt stated.

    Public defender Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities had taken too lengthy to get Matar in entrance of a decide whereas leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks.” “He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Barone added.

    Matar, 24, is accused of attacking Rushdie on Friday because the creator was being launched at a lecture on the Chautauqua Institute, a nonprofit training and retreat middle.

    Rushdie, 75, suffered a broken liver and severed nerves in an arm and a watch, and was on a ventilator and unable to talk, his agent Andrew Wylie stated Friday night. Rushdie was prone to lose the injured eye.

    The assault was met with shock and outrage from a lot of the world, together with tributes and reward for the award-winning creator who for greater than 30 years has confronted dying threats for The Satanic Verses.

    Authors, activists and authorities officers cited Rushdie’s braveness and longtime advocacy of free speech regardless of the dangers to his personal security. Writer and longtime good friend Ian McEwan referred to as Rushdie “an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists across the world,” and actor-author Kal Penn cited him as a job mannequin “for an entire generation of artists, especially many of us in the South Asian diaspora toward whom he’s shown incredible warmth.”

    President Joe Biden stated Saturday in an announcement that he and first girl Jill Biden have been “shocked and saddened” by the assault. “Salman Rushdie — with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced — stands for essential, universal ideals,” the assertion learn. “Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear. These are the building blocks of any free and open society.”

    Rushdie, a local of India who has since lived in Britain and the US, is thought for his surreal and satirical prose type, starting together with his Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel Midnight’s Children, by which he sharply criticised India’s then-prime minister, Indira Gandhi. The Satanic Verses drew dying threats after it was printed in 1988, with many Muslims concerning as blasphemy a dream sequence primarily based on the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, amongst different objections. Rushdie’s guide had already been banned and burned in India, Pakistan and elsewhere earlier than Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s dying in 1989.

    Khomeini died that very same 12 months, however the fatwa stays in impact. Iran’s present supreme chief, Khamenei, by no means issued a fatwa of his personal withdrawing the edict, although Iran in recent times hasn’t centered on the author. Investigators have been working to find out whether or not the assailant, born a decade after “The Satanic Verses” was printed, acted alone.

    District Attorney Schmidt alluded to the fatwa as a possible motive in arguing towards bail. “Even if this court were to set a million dollars bail, we stand a risk that bail could be met,” Schmidt stated. “His resources don’t matter to me. We understand that the agenda that was carried out yesterday is something that was adopted and it’s sanctioned by larger groups and organisations well beyond the jurisdictional borders of Chautauqua County,” the prosecutor stated.

    Barone, the general public defender, stated after the listening to that Matar has been speaking overtly with him and that he would spend the approaching weeks attempting to find out about his consumer, together with whether or not he has psychological or habit points.

    Matar is from Fairview, New Jersey. Rosaria Calabrese, supervisor of the State of Fitness Boxing Club, a small, tightly knit health club in close by North Bergen, stated Matar joined April 11 and took part in about 27 group periods for learners trying to enhance their health earlier than emailing her a number of days in the past to say he needed to cancel his membership as a result of “he wouldn’t be coming back for a while.” Gym proprietor Desmond Boyle stated he noticed “nothing violent” about Matar, describing him as well mannered and quiet, but somebody who all the time regarded “tremendously sad.” He stated Matar resisted makes an attempt by him and others to welcome and interact him. “He had this look every time he came in. It looked like it was the worst day of his life,” Boyle stated.

    Matar was born within the United States to oldsters who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon, the mayor of the village, Ali Tehfe, instructed The Associated Press. Flags are seen throughout the village of Iran-backed Shia militant group Hezbollah and portraits of chief Hassan Nasrallah, Khamenei, Khomeini and slain Iranian Gen Qassem Soleimani. Journalists visiting Yaroun on Saturday have been requested to go away. Hezbollah spokespeople didn’t reply to requests for remark.

    Iran’s theocratic authorities and its state-run media assigned no motive for the assault. In Tehran, some Iranians interviewed by the AP praised the assault on an creator they imagine tarnished the Islamic religion, whereas others frightened it might additional isolate their nation.

    An AP reporter witnessed the attacker stab or punch Rushdie about 10 or 15 occasions. Dr. Martin Haskell, a doctor who was amongst those that rushed to assist, described Rushdie’s wounds as “serious but recoverable.”

    Event moderator Henry Reese, 73, suffered a facial damage and was handled and launched from a hospital, police stated. He and Rushdie had deliberate to debate the United States as a refuge for writers and different artists in exile.

    A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy have been assigned to Rushdie’s lecture, and state police stated the trooper made the arrest. But afterward some longtime guests to the middle questioned why there wasn’t tighter safety given the threats towards Rushdie and a bounty of greater than $3 million on his head.

    News concerning the stabbing has led to renewed curiosity in The Satanic Verses, which topped finest vendor lists after the fatwa was issued in 1989. As of Saturday afternoon, the novel ranked No 13 on Amazon.com. The guide’s publication in 1988 sparked often-violent protests across the Muslim world towards Rushdie, who was born to a Muslim household and has lengthy recognized as a nonbeliever, as soon as calling himself “a hardline atheist.”

    At least 45 individuals have been killed in riots, together with 12 in Rushdie’s hometown of Mumbai. In 1991, a Japanese translator of the guide was stabbed to dying and an Italian translator survived a knife assault. In 1993, the guide’s Norwegian writer was shot thrice and survived.

    The dying threats and bounty led Rushdie to enter hiding beneath a British authorities safety program, which included an around-the-clock armed guard. After 9 years of seclusion, Rushdie cautiously resumed extra public appearances, sustaining his outspoken criticism of spiritual extremism total.

    In 2012 he printed a memoir concerning the fatwa titled Joseph Anton, the pseudonym Rushdie used whereas in hiding. He stated throughout a New York discuss that 12 months that terrorism was actually the artwork of concern: “The only way you can defeat it is by deciding not to be afraid.”

  • ‘You are subsequent’: Author JK Rowling receives loss of life menace over tweet on Salman Rushdie

    Author JK Rowling has acquired a public menace from an Iran-backed extremist, following her denunciation of yesterday’s assault on fellow British creator Salman Rushdie.

    JK Rowling has instructed her followers that the police are concerned after a tweet about Salman Rushdie prompted a loss of life menace on Twitter (Photo: AP)

    Author JK Rowling has acquired a loss of life menace for a tweet condemning the assault on Salman Rushdie. Rowling, 57, took to Twitter to share screenshots of the menace message from a consumer.

    The Harry Potter creator had reacted to the stabbing incident involving Rushdie with a tweet saying she felt very sick and hoped the novelist can be okay. In response, a consumer wrote: “Don’t worry. You are next.”

    The Twitter deal with, which issued the loss of life menace, had additionally praised Hadi Matar, the assailant from New Jersey who stabbed Rusdhie a number of instances throughout a literary occasion in western New York on Friday.

    Salman Rushdie is on a ventilator with a broken liver and will lose a watch after he was stabbed by Hadi Matar, who apparently sympathised with Shia extremism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

    Matar has since been charged with tried homicide within the second diploma and assault within the second diploma, and police are probing the motive behind the assault.

    Rushdie’s ebook ‘The Satanic Verses’ has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims contemplate it to be blasphemous.

    READ | Salman Rushdie on life help after stabbing, Iranian newspapers reward assailant | Top Points

    READ | Who is Hadi Matar, the 24-year-old man who stabbed Salman Rushdie in New York

    — ENDS —

  • ‘This is no way for a free society to behave’: Salman Rushdie wrote to Rajiv Gandhi after ban on ‘The Satanic Verses’

    Ever because it got here out in 1988, Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses has been one of the crucial controversial books on the planet. After Muslims from throughout the globe started making a hue and cry concerning the guide, alleging that it mocked their religion, varied nationwide governments, together with the Indian authorities underneath Rajiv Gandhi, banned the import and sale of the work.

    On studying concerning the Indian authorities’s determination, the writer shot off a strongly-worded letter to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

    The New York Times revealed a model of the letter on October 19, 1988, Section A, Page 27 of the National version with the headline: ‘India Bans a Book For Its Own Good.’

    In the letter, Rushdie expressed his exasperation over the federal government’s transfer to ban the guide “after representations by two or three Muslim politicians, including Syed Shahabuddin and Khurshid Alam Khan, both members of Parliament.”

    He additional went on to say, “These persons, whom I do not hesitate to call extremists, even fundamentalists, have attacked me and my novel while stating that they had no need actually to read it. That the Government should have given in to such figures is profoundly disturbing.”

    Mentioning that an official assertion defined that The Satanic Verses had been banned as a pre-emptive measure as sure passages had been recognized as inclined to distortion and misuse, he acknowledged: “This really is astounding. It is as though, having identified an innocent person as a likely target for assault by muggers or rapists, you were to put that person in jail for protection. This is no way, Mr. Gandhi, for a free society to behave.”

    “Clearly, your government is feeling a little ashamed of itself and, sir, it has much to be ashamed about. It is not for nothing that just about every leading Indian newspaper and magazine has deplored the ban as, for example, ”a Philistine determination” (The Hindu) or ”thought management” (Indian Express),” he added.

    He additionally identified that many individuals all over the world would discover it unusual that it’s the finance ministry that obtained to determine what Indian readers might or might not learn. Rushdie additional took a swipe on the ministry by quoting from information company PTI’s report – “the ban did not detract from the literary and artistic merit of Rushdie’s work,” by responding: “Thanks for the good review.”

    He additional asserted that the correct to freedom of expression is on the basis of any democratic society, “and at present, all over the world, Indian democracy is becoming something of a laughing stock.”

    In the letter, he additionally tried to offer explanations for a number of parts within the guide that went on to kick up an argument.

    “The section of the book in question (and let’s remember that the book isn’t actually about Islam, but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay) deals with a prophet – who is not called Mohammed – living in a highly fantastical city made of sand (it dissolves when water falls upon it). He is surrounded by fictional followers, one of whom happens to bear my own first name. Moreover, this entire sequence happens in a dream, the fictional dream of a fictional character, an Indian movie star, and one who is losing his mind, at that. How much further from history could one get?” he requested.

    Rushdie additionally slammed the federal government saying, “From where I sit, Mr. Gandhi, it looks very much as if your Government has become unable or unwilling to resist pressure from more or less any extremist religious grouping; that, in short, it’s the fundamentalists who now control the political agenda.”

    “I deeply resent my book being used as a political football; what should matter to you more than my resentment is that you come out of this looking not only Philistine and anti-democratic but opportunistic,” the writer added.

    He ended the letter by stating: “Your action in the matter of ”The Satanic Verses” will probably be an vital indicator for many individuals all over the world. If you verify the ban, I’m afraid I, and plenty of others, must assume the worst. If, alternatively, it is best to admit your authorities’s error and transfer swiftly to right it, I would be the first to applaud your honorable deed.”

  • Salman Rushdie as soon as complained about ‘too much security’ round him: Report

    Salman Rushdie, who was attacked and stabbed on stage at a literary occasion right here, has beforehand complained about having an excessive amount of safety round him, based on a media report on Saturday.

    The Mumbai-born author, who confronted Islamist dying threats for years after writing “The Satanic Verses”, was stabbed by a 24-year-old New Jersey resident recognized as Hadi Matar on stage on Friday whereas he was being launched on the occasion of the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York.

    A bloodied Rushdie was airlifted from a discipline adjoining to the venue to a hospital in northwestern Pennsylvania the place the 75-year-old author underwent surgical procedure.

    In 2001, Rushdie publicly complained about having an excessive amount of safety round him, The New York Post reported.

    While attending the Prague Writers’ Festival, he advised reporters, “To be here and to find a large security operation around me has actually felt a little embarrassing… I thought it was really unnecessary and kind of excessive and was certainly not arranged at my request.”

    “I spent a great deal of time before I came here saying that I really didn’t want that. So I was very surprised to arrive here and discover a really quite substantial operation, because it felt like being in a time warp, that I had gone back in time several years,” he was quoted as saying.

    ALSO READ| Author Salman Rushdie stabbed 10-15 instances, claims eyewitness | Top Points

    Rushdie was stabbed within the neck as he was on the stage on the Chautauqua Institution, a not-for-profit neighborhood on Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State, the place roughly 7,500 persons are in residence on any day throughout a nine-week season.

    Following the assault on Friday, questions had been raised in regards to the safety precautions — or lack thereof — on the host establishment, which sits in a rural lake resort about 110 km south of Buffalo, New York.

    The establishment’s management had rejected suggestions for fundamental safety measures, together with bag checks and steel detectors, fearing that will create a divide between audio system and the viewers, based on two sources who spoke with CNN.

    The management additionally feared that it might change the tradition on the establishment, the sources stated.

    — ENDS —

  • Author Salman Rushdie stabbed on lecture stage in New York; more likely to lose a watch

    His agent, Andrew Wylie, stated the author was on a ventilator Friday night, with a broken liver, severed nerves in an arm and a watch he was more likely to lose. Police recognized the attacker as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey. He was arrested on the scene and was awaiting arraignment. State police Maj. Eugene Staniszewski stated the motive for the stabbing was unclear.

    An Associated Press reporter witnessed the attacker confront Rushdie on stage on the Chautauqua Institution and punch or stab him 10 to fifteen occasions as he was being launched. The writer was pushed or fell to the ground, and the person was arrested.

    Dr. Martin Haskell, a doctor who was amongst those that rushed to assist, described Rushdie’s wounds as “serious but recoverable.”

    Event moderator Henry Reese, 73, a co-founder of a company that gives residencies to writers going through persecution, was additionally attacked. Reese suffered a facial harm and was handled and launched from a hospital, police stated. He and Rushdie have been attributable to talk about the United States as a refuge for writers and different artists in exile.

    #SalmanRushdie simply attacked onstage at @chq @NBCNews @ABC @cnnbrk pic.twitter.com/I1XT6AmkhK

    — Charles Savenor (@CharlieSavenor) August 12, 2022

    A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy have been assigned to Rushdie’s lecture, and state police stated the trooper made the arrest. But after the assault, some longtime guests to the middle questioned why there wasn’t tighter safety for the occasion, given the a long time of threats in opposition to Rushdie and a bounty on his head providing greater than $3 million for anybody who kills him.

    Rabbi Charles Savenor was among the many roughly 2,500 folks within the viewers. Amid gasps, spectators have been ushered out of the out of doors amphitheater.

    The assailant ran onto the platform “and started pounding on Mr. Rushdie. At first you’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then it became abundantly clear in a few seconds that he was being beaten,” Savenor stated. He stated the assault lasted about 20 seconds.

    Another spectator, Kathleen James, stated the attacker was wearing black, with a black masks.

    “We thought perhaps it was part of a stunt to show that there’s still a lot of controversy around this author. But it became evident in a few seconds” that it wasn’t, she stated.Matar, like different guests, had obtained a move to enter the establishment’s 750-acre grounds, President Michael Hill stated.

    The suspect’s lawyer, public defender Nathaniel Barone, stated he was nonetheless gathering data and declined to remark. Matar’s dwelling was blocked off by authorities.

    Rushdie has been a outstanding spokesman totally free expression and liberal causes, and the literary world recoiled at what novelist and Rushdie good friend Ian McEwan described as “an assault on freedom of thought and speech.”

    “Salman has been an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists across the world,” McEwan stated in a press release. “He is a fiery and generous spirit, a man of immense talent and courage and he will not be deterred.”

    PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel stated the group didn’t know of any comparable act of violence in opposition to a literary author within the U.S. Rushdie was as soon as president of the group, which advocates for writers and free expression. Rushdie’s 1988 novel was considered as blasphemous by many Muslims, who noticed a personality as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad, amongst different objections. Across the Muslim world, often-violent protests erupted in opposition to Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim household.

    At least 45 folks have been killed in riots over the e-book, together with 12 folks in Rushdie’s hometown of Mumbai. In 1991, a Japanese translator of the e-book was stabbed to demise and an Italian translator survived a knife assault. In 1993, the e-book’s Norwegian writer was shot thrice and survived.

    The e-book was banned in Iran, the place the late chief Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s demise. Khomeini died that very same yr.Iran’s present Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has by no means issued a fatwa of his personal withdrawing the edict, although Iran lately hasn’t targeted on the author.

    Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Friday’s assault, which led an evening information bulletin on Iranian state tv.

    The demise threats and bounty led Rushdie to enter hiding beneath a British authorities safety program, which included a round the clock armed guard. Rushdie emerged after 9 years of seclusion and cautiously resumed extra public appearances, sustaining his outspoken criticism of spiritual extremism general.He stated in a 2012 discuss in New York that terrorism is basically the artwork of worry.

    “The only way you can defeat it is by deciding not to be afraid,” he stated.

    Anti-Rushdie sentiment has lingered lengthy after Khomeini’s decree. The Index on Censorship, a company selling free expression, stated cash was raised to spice up the reward for his killing as not too long ago as 2016.

    An Associated Press journalist who went to the Tehran workplace of the 15 Khordad Foundation, which put up the hundreds of thousands for the bounty on Rushdie, discovered it closed Friday night time on the Iranian weekend. No one answered calls to its listed phone quantity.

    In 2012, Rushdie printed a memoir, “Joseph Anton,” in regards to the fatwa. The title got here from the pseudonym Rushdie had used whereas in hiding.Rushdie rose to prominence together with his Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” however his identify grew to become identified all over the world after “The Satanic Verses.”

    Widely considered one in all Britain’s most interesting residing writers, Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2008 and earlier this yr was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor, a royal accolade for individuals who have made a serious contribution to the humanities, science or public life.

    In a tweet, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson deplored that Rushdie was attacked “while exercising a right we should never cease to defend.”

    The Chautauqua Institution, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Buffalo in a rural nook of New York, has served for greater than a century as a spot for reflection and religious steering. Visitors don’t move by way of metallic detectors or bear bag checks. Most folks depart the doorways to their century-old cottages unlocked at night time.

    The middle is understood for its summertime lecture collection, the place Rushdie has spoken earlier than.

    At a night vigil, just a few hundred residents and guests gathered for prayer, music and a protracted second of silence.“Hate can’t win,” one man shouted.

  • Novelist Salman Rushdie on ventilator after New York stabbing

    Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born novelist who spent years in hiding after Iran urged Muslims to kill him due to his writing, was stabbed within the neck and torso onstage at a lecture in New York state on Friday and airlifted to a hospital, police stated.

    After hours of surgical procedure, Rushdie was on a ventilator and unable to talk on Friday night after an assault condemned by writers and politicians around the globe as an assault on freedom of expression.

    “The news is not good,” Andrew Wylie, his ebook agent, wrote in an electronic mail. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”

    Rushdie, 75, was being launched to provide a chat to an viewers of lots of on creative freedom at western New York’s Chautauqua Institution when a person rushed to the stage and lunged on the novelist, who has lived with a bounty on his head because the late Eighties.

    Stunned attendees helped wrest the person from Rushdie, who had fallen to the ground. A New York State Police trooper offering safety on the occasion arrested the attacker. Police recognized the suspect as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old man from Fairview, New Jersey, who purchased a cross to the occasion.

    “A man jumped up on the stage from I don’t know where and started what looked like beating him on the chest, repeated fist strokes into his chest and neck,” stated Bradley Fisher, who was within the viewers. “People were screaming and crying out and gasping.”

    A physician within the viewers helped are likely to Rushdie whereas emergency providers arrived, police stated. Henry Reese, the occasion’s moderator, suffered a minor head harm. Police stated they had been working with federal investigators to find out a motive. They didn’t describe the weapon used.

    READ | Author Salman Rushdie stabbed 10-15 occasions, claims eyewitness | Top Points

    Rushdie, who was born right into a Muslim Kashmiri household in Bombay, now Mumbai, earlier than shifting to the United Kingdom, has lengthy confronted demise threats for his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses.” Some Muslims stated the ebook contained blasphemous passages. It was banned in lots of international locations with giant Muslim populations upon its 1988 publication.

    A couple of months later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme chief, pronounced a fatwa, or spiritual edict, calling upon Muslims to kill the novelist and anybody concerned within the ebook’s publication for blasphemy.

    Rushdie, who known as his novel “pretty mild,” went into hiding for almost a decade. Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the novel, was murdered in 1991. The Iranian authorities stated in 1998 it might not again the fatwa, and Rushdie has lived comparatively overtly lately.

    Iranian organizations, some affiliated with the federal government, have raised a bounty value hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for Rushdie’s homicide. And Khomeini’s successor as supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated as not too long ago as 2019 that the fatwa was “irrevocable.”

    Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency and different information retailers donated cash in 2016 to extend the bounty by $600,000. Fars known as Rushdie an apostate who “insulted the prophet” in its report on Friday’s assault.

    READ | Author Salman Rushdie, stabbed in New York, usually pressured to reside on the run

    ‘NOT A USUAL WRITER’

    Rushdie printed a memoir in 2012 about his cloistered, secretive life underneath the fatwa known as “Joseph Anton,” the pseudonym he used whereas in British police safety. His second novel, “Midnight’s Children,” gained the Booker Prize. His new novel “Victory City” is because of be printed in February.

    British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated he was appalled that Rushdie was “stabbed while exercising a right we should never cease to defend.”

    Rushdie was on the establishment in western New York for a dialogue concerning the United States giving asylum to artists in exile and “as a home for freedom of creative expression,” in accordance with the establishment’s web site.

    There had been no apparent safety checks on the Chautauqua Institution, a landmark based within the nineteenth century within the small lakeside city of the identical title; employees merely checked individuals’s passes for admission, attendees stated.

    “I felt like we needed to have more protection there because Salman Rushdie is not a usual writer,” stated Anour Rahmani, an Algerian author and human rights activist who was within the viewers. “He’s a writer with a fatwa against him.”

    READ | ‘Barbaric, surprising’: Voices in solidarity with Salman Rushdie

    Michael Hill, the establishment’s president, stated at a information convention they’d a observe of working with state and native police to offer occasion safety. He vowed the summer season’s program would quickly proceed.

    “Our whole purpose is to help people bridge what has been too divisive of a world,” Hill stated. “The worst thing Chautauqua could do is back away from its mission in light of this tragedy, and I don’t think Mr. Rushdie would want that either.”

    Rushdie turned a US citizen in 2016 and lives in New York City.

    A self-described lapsed Muslim and “hard-line atheist,” he has been a fierce critic of faith throughout the spectrum and outspoken about oppression in his native India, together with underneath the Hindu-nationalist authorities of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    PEN America, an advocacy group for freedom of expression of which Rushdie is a former president, stated it was “reeling from shock and horror” at what it known as an unprecedented assault on a author within the United States.

    “Salman Rushdie has been targeted for his words for decades but has never flinched nor faltered,” Suzanne Nossel, PEN’s chief govt, stated within the assertion. Earlier within the morning, Rushdie had emailed her to assist with relocating Ukrainian writers in search of refuge, she stated.

    WATCH | Salman Rushdie being airlifted to hospital after he was stabbed in New York

    — ENDS —

  • Rushdie has lived underneath Iran loss of life sentence since 1989

    Salman Rushdie has been dwelling underneath a loss of life sentence since 1989, about six months after the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which was thought-about blasphemous by some Muslims as a result of it fictionalized a part of the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad.

    Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, issued a fatwa on February 14, 1989, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie and placing a worth on his head of a number of million {dollars}.

    Rushdie, who lived in London on the time, instantly went into hiding with 24-hour safety from the British police, transferring each three days from place to position till a fortified safehouse was ready for him. He lived there for a lot of the subsequent 10 years.

    Even earlier than the fatwa, the ebook was banned in numerous nations, together with India, Bangladesh, Sudan and Sri Lanka. Many died in protests in opposition to its publication, together with 12 individuals in a riot in Bombay in February 1989 and 6 extra in one other riot in Islamabad.

    Books have been burned. Reaction intensified after the publication of the ebook within the United States that very same month, at the same time as extra nations banned it. There have been assaults on bookstores and threats to many extra.

    After the fatwa, a halfhearted apology from Rushdie, which he later regretted, was rejected by Iran.

    Many individuals linked to the ebook have been additionally focused, and several other have been injured.

    In July 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, was stabbed to loss of life and its Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was badly wounded. In October 1993, William Nygaard, the novel’s Norwegian writer, was shot thrice outdoors his residence in Oslo and significantly injured.

    The fatwa was maintained by Iran’s authorities after the loss of life of Ayatollah Khomeini for 10 years, till 1998, when Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who was thought-about comparatively liberal, stated that Iran not supported the killing.

    Rushdie then started to make public appearances once more, attending ebook occasions, events and eating out in eating places.

    But the fatwa stays in place, with a bounty connected from a semiofficial Iranian non secular basis.