MAYVILLE, New York –
Salman Rushdie remained hospitalized on Saturday after suffering serious injuries in a stab attack, which was met with shock and outrage from much of the world, along with tributes and praise for the award-winning author who has faced threats for more than 30 years. of death for his novel “The Satanic Verses”.
Rushdie, 75, suffered liver damage, severed nerves in his arm and eye, was on a ventilator and was unable to speak, his agent Andrew Wylie said Friday night. Rushdie would likely lose the injured eye.
Authors, activists and government officials condemned the attack, citing Rushdie’s courage for his longstanding defense of free speech despite the risks to his own safety. Rushdie’s fellow writer and friend Ian McEwan called him “an inspiring advocate for persecuted writers and journalists around the world,” and actor and author Kal Penn cited him as a role model “for a whole generation of artists.” , especially many of us in the South Asian diaspora towards whom he has shown incredible warmth.”
Police identified the suspect as 24-year-old Hadi Matar. He was arrested after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit educational and retirement center where Rushdie was scheduled to speak.
Authorities said Matar is from Fairview, New Jersey. He was born in the United States to Lebanese parents who emigrated from Yaroun, a border village in southern Lebanon, the village’s mayor, Ali Tehfe, told The Associated Press.
Rushdie, a native of India who has since lived in Britain and the US, is known for his surreal and satirical prose style, beginning with his 1981 Booker Prize-winning novel, “Midnight’s Children,” in which harshly criticized the then India. Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. “The Satanic Verses” received death threats after its publication in 1988, and many Muslims considered a dream sequence based on the life of the Prophet Muhammad blasphemous, among other objections. Rushdie’s book had already been banned and burned in India, Pakistan and elsewhere before Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s death.
Khomeini died the same year he issued the fatwa, which is still in effect. Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, never issued a fatwa of his own withdrawing the edict, though Iran in recent years has not targeted the writer.
Investigators were working to determine if the assailant, born a decade after the publication of “The Satanic Verses,” acted alone.
Iran’s theocratic government and its state media did not give any justification for the attack. In Tehran, some Iranians interviewed by the AP praised the attack on a perpetrator they believe tarnishes the Islamic faith, while others worry it further isolates the country from him.
An AP reporter watched as the attacker confronted Rushdie onstage and stabbed or punched him 10 to 15 times while introducing himself to the perpetrator. Dr. Martin Haskell, a doctor who was among those rushing to help, described Rushdie’s injuries as “serious but recoverable”.
The event’s moderator, Henry Reese, 73, co-founder of an organization that provides residencies for writers facing persecution, was also attacked. Reese suffered a facial injury and was treated and released from a hospital, police said. He and Rushdie had planned to talk about the United States as a refuge for writers and other artists in exile.
A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy were assigned to Rushdie’s conference, and state police said the trooper made the arrest. But after the attack, some longtime visitors to the center questioned why there wasn’t tighter security for the event, given the threats against Rushdie and a bounty on his head that offered more than $3 million to anyone who found it. will kill.
Matar, like other visitors, had obtained a pass to enter the 750-acre grounds of the Chautauqua Institution, said Michael Hill, the institution’s president.
The suspect’s attorney, public defender Nathaniel Barone, said he was still gathering information and declined to comment. Matar’s house was blocked by the authorities.
Rabbi Charles Savenor was among the approximately 2,500 people in the audience for Rushdie’s appearance.
The assailant ran onto the platform “and started hitting Mr. Rushdie. At first you think, ‘What’s going on?’ And then it became very clear within a few seconds that he was being hit,” Savenor said. He said the attack lasted about 20 seconds.
Another bystander, Kathleen James, said the attacker was dressed in black, wearing a black mask.
Amid gasps, the spectators were ushered out of the open-air amphitheater.
The stabbing reverberated from the quiet town of Chautauqua to the United Nations, which issued a statement expressing the horror of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and stressing that freedom of expression and opinion should not be met with violence.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday’s attack, which headlined an evening news bulletin on Iranian state television. From the White House, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called the attack “reprehensible” and said the Biden administration wishes Rushdie a speedy recovery.
After the publication of “The Satanic Verses,” often violent protests erupted across the Muslim world against Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim family and long identified as a non-believer, once he he called himself “a hard-line atheist”. .”
At least 45 people were killed in riots over the book, including 12 people in Rushdie’s hometown of Mumbai. In 1991, a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death and an Italian translator survived a knife attack. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times and survived.
The death threats and reward drove Rushdie into hiding under a British government protection program, which included a 24-hour armed guard. Rushdie emerged from nine years in seclusion and cautiously resumed more public appearances, keeping his open criticism of religious extremism in general.
In 2012 Rushdie published a memoir, “Joseph Anton”, about the fatwa. The title comes from the pseudonym Rushdie used while he was in hiding. He said during a talk in New York the same year the memoir was published that terrorism was really the art of fear.
“The only way you can beat him is by deciding not to be afraid,” he said.
The Chautauqua Institution, about 55 miles southwest of Buffalo in a rural corner of New York, has served for more than a century as a place of reflection and spiritual guidance. Visitors do not pass through metal detectors or undergo baggage checks. Most people leave the doors of their centuries-old cabins open at night.
The center is known for its summer conference series, where Rushdie has spoken before.
At an evening vigil, a few hundred residents and visitors gathered to pray, listen to music and observe a long moment of silence.
“Hate cannot win,” one man yelled.
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Italy reported from New York.