Indian-born writer Salman Rushdie, the target of death threats since the publication of ‘Satanic Verses’ in 1988, was placed on life support following being stabbed in the neck on Friday as he prepared to take part in a conference in New York State, USA.
Salman Rushdie, the author of “Satanic Verses” threatened with death for more than 30 years, remained hospitalized in serious condition, Saturday August 13, following being stabbed in the United States by a young man of Lebanese origin, an attack which caused a wave of international indignation. The alleged assailant is charged with attempted murder.
Nothing filtered Saturday morning on the evolution of the state of health of the famous British naturalized American writer, 75, treated in emergency and under respiratory assistance in a hospital in Erie (Pennsylvania) on the edge of the lake of the same name which separates the United States of Canada.
The attack sent shockwaves around the world, with the White House condemning “an appalling act of violence”.
“Nothing justifies a fatwa, a death sentence,” said Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical newspaper decimated by an Islamist attack in 2015.
“We will have to repeat once more and once more that nothing justifies a fatwa. What right do individuals, who we don’t care regarding knowing that they are religious, arrogate to themselves the right to say that someone must die?” #SalmanRushdie https://t.co/XCoQJTVIQN
— Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) August 12, 2022
In favor of Shiite extremism
The attacker, immediately arrested and taken into custody for attempted murder, is called Hadi Matar, is 24 years old and lives in the state of New Jersey, according to the police.
According to Ali Qassem Tahfa, the chief of the village of Yaroun, in southern Lebanon, Hadi Matar “is of Lebanese origin”. “He was born and raised in the United States. His mother and father are from Yaroun,” the village chief told AFP.
A preliminary review of his social media by law enforcement showed he was supportive of Shia extremism and the causes of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), NBC New York reported, citing a anonymous law enforcement official familiar with the investigation into the attack.
In Iran, on Saturday, the main ultra-conservative daily Kayhan congratulated the aggressor. “Bravo to this brave and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and vicious Salman Rushdie,” the paper wrote. “Let us kiss the hand of him who tore the neck of the enemy of God with a knife”.
At the Tehran book market, everyone knows regarding the attack, but only those who support it speak out: “I was very happy to hear the news. Whoever the author (of the attack ), I kiss his hand (…) May God curse Salman Rushdie”, assures Mehrab Bigdeli, who presents himself as a Shiite cleric.
Fatwa
The assault took place around 11 a.m. (3 p.m. GMT) Friday on the dais of the amphitheater at the Chautauqua Cultural Center, when a man ‘rushed onto the stage’ and ‘stabbed’ Salman Rushdie several both “in the neck” and “in the abdomen”, according to the New York State Police.
“The news is not good,” Salman Rushdie’s agent Andrew Wylie told the New York Times on Friday night.
“Salman will probably lose an eye, the nerves in his arm have been severed and he was stabbed in the liver”, he detailed, specifying that his client was placed on an artificial respirator.
The host of the conference where Salman Rushdie was to speak, Ralph Henry Reese, 73, was “slightly injured in the face” but released from the hospital.
Carl LeVan, professor of political science, was in the room, and told AFP on the phone that a man had thrown himself on the stage where Salman Rushdie was sitting to stab him violently several times, “trying to kill”.
Born in 1947 in India into a family of non-practicing Muslim intellectuals, Salman Rushdie set part of the Islamic world ablaze with the publication of the “Satanic Verses”, leading Iranian Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa in 1989 calling for his assassination.
The author of fifteen novels, stories for young people, short stories and essays written in English had therefore been forced to live in hiding and under police protection, going from cache to cache.
convictions
Naturalized American and living in New York for a few years, Salman Rushdie had resumed a more or less normal life while continuing to defend, in his books, satire and irreverence.
Most the “fatwa” has never been lifted and many of the translators of his book were injured by attacks, even killed, such as the Japanese Hitoshi Igarashi, victim of several stab wounds in 1991.
“His fight is ours, universal”, launched French President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter, ensuring that he was “today, more than ever, by his side”.
For 33 years, Salman Rushdie has embodied freedom and the fight once morest obscurantism. Hate and barbarism have just struck him, cowardly. His fight is ours, universal. Today, more than ever, we are at his side.
—Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 12, 2022
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed while exercising a right that we should never stop defending”, referring to freedom of expression.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, through his spokesman, “horrified” by the attack.
With AFP
