Foreign

Salman Rushdie off Ventilator, Likely to Lose an Eye

By Web News 383

Author Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and is able to talk again, a day after being stabbed.

Mr Rushdie, 75, was attacked while speaking at an event in New York state and was in a critical condition.

He has faced years of death threats for his novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims see as blasphemous.

The man charged over Friday’s attack has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and has been remanded in custody without bail.

Hadi Matar, 24, is accused of running onto the stage and stabbing Mr Rushdie at least 10 times in the face, neck and abdomen.

Following the attack, Mr Wylie said the novelist had suffered severed nerves in one arm, damage to his liver, and would likely lose an eye.

Henry Reese, who had been due to interview Mr Rushdie at the event, suffered a minor head injury. He is the co-founder of a non-profit organisation that provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of persecution.

Before the attack, Mr Rushdie was about to give a speech about how the US has served as a haven for such writers.

The novelist was forced into hiding for nearly 10 years after The Satanic Verses was published in 1988. Many Muslims reacted with fury to it, arguing that the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad was a grave insult to their faith.

He faced death threats and the then-Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa – or decree – calling for Mr Rushdie’s assassination, placing a $3m (£2.5m) bounty on the author’s head.

The fatwa remains active, and although Iran’s government has distanced itself from Mr Khomeini’s decree, a quasi-official Iranian religious foundation added a further $500,000 to the reward in 2012.

Little is known about the suspect who attacked the acclaimed author on Friday.

Mr Matar, from Fairview, New Jersey, was born in the US to parents who had emigrated from Lebanon, a Lebanese official has told the media.

A review of his social media accounts has suggested he is sympathetic to the causes of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRG), NBC News reported.

Police have not disclosed his motive – or what an examination of a backpack and electronic devices found at the centre may have yielded.

However, no link has been definitively established with the IRG – a major military, political and economic force with close ties to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many other senior figures.

Mr Rushdie was born in Bombay, India in 1947. He was sent to boarding school in England before going on to study history at the University of Cambridge. In 2007, he was knighted for services to literature.

There has been an outpouring of support for him, with the attack widely condemned as an assault on freedom of expression.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

Foreign

Man Stabs Author of Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie in New York State

By Web News 403

Author Salman Rushdie, who suffered years of Islamist death threats after writing The Satanic Verses, has been attacked on stage in New York State.

The Booker Prize winner, 75, was speaking at an event at the Chautauqua Institution at the time.

New York State Police said a male suspect ran up onto the stage and attacked Mr Rushdie and an interviewer.

“Rushdie suffered an apparent stab wound to the neck,” the police statement said.

The author was transported by helicopter to a local hospital. His condition is not currently known.

The interviewer, Henry Reese, also suffered a minor head injury. Mr Reese is the co-founder of a non-profit that provides sanctuary to writers exiled under tthe hreat of persecution.

The suspect was immediately taken into custody, police said.

The Indian-born novelist catapulted to fame with Midnight’s Children in 1981, which went on to sell over one million copies in the UK alone.

But Mr Rushdie’s fourth book, in 1988 – The Satanic Verses – forced him into hiding for nine years.

The surrealist, post-modern novel sparked outrage among some Muslims, who considered its content to be blasphemous, and was banned in some countries.

A year after the book’s publication, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for Mr Rushdie’s execution and offered a $3m (£2.5m) reward.

Dozens of people died in the violence that followed its publication, including murdered translators of the work.

The bounty over Mr Rushdie’s head remains active, although Iran’s government has distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree.

The author, who has British and American citizenship, is a vocal advocate for freedom of expression and has defended his work on several occasions.

When he was knighted in 2007 by Queen Elizabeth II, it sparked protests in Iran and Pakistan, where one cabinet minister said the honour “justifies suicide attacks”.

Literary events attended by Mr Rushdie have been subject to threats and boycotts in the past.

His appearance at the Chautauqua Institution event, in western New York, was the first in a summertime lecture series hosted by the non-profit.

A spokesman for the organisation’s on-site police department declined to comment when contacted by the BBC.

An artist at the venue said that rehearsals had been going as normal this morning until the attack inside its amphitheatre.

The venue has been on lockdown since, she said.

PEN America, a prominent US free speech group for authors, said it was “reeling from shock and horror” at news of the attack. Mr Rushdie was the organisation’s president from 2004 to 2006.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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