Author Salman Rushdie attacked on lecture stage in New York

Salman Rushdie, the creator whose writing led to demise threats from Iran within the Eighties, was attacked Friday as he was about to offer a lecture in western New York.

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

— Charles Savenor (@CharlieSavenor) August 12, 2022

An Associated Press reporter witnessed a person storm the stage on the Chautauqua Institution and start punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being launched. The creator was taken or fell to the ground, and the person was restrained.

Rushdie’s situation was not instantly identified.

Author Salman Rushdie is tended to after he was attacked throughout a lecture, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, on the Chautauqua
Institution in Chautauqua, N.Y. (AP Photo/Joshua Goodman)

Rushdie’s ebook “The Satanic Verses” has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims contemplate it to be blasphemous. A yr later, Iran’s late chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s demise.

A bounty of over $3 million has additionally been provided for anybody who kills Rushdie.

Iran’s authorities has lengthy since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, however anti-Rushdie sentiment lingered. In 2012, a semi-official Iranian spiritual basis raised the bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.

Rushdie dismissed that risk on the time, saying there was “no evidence” of individuals being within the reward.

That yr, Rushdie printed a memoir, “Joseph Anton,” concerning the fatwa.