MAYVILLE, New York –
“The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie had his ventilator removed and was able to speak on Saturday, a day after he was stabbed while preparing to give a lecture in upstate New York.
Rushdie remained hospitalized with serious injuries, but author Aatish Taseer tweeted in the evening that he was “off the ventilator and talking (and joking).” Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed that information without offering further details.
Earlier in the day, the man accused of attacking him Friday at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit retirement and education center, pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault in what a prosecutor called a “pre-planned” crime. “.
An attorney for Hadi Matar pleaded guilty on his behalf during an arraignment in western New York. The suspect appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands handcuffed in front of him.
A judge ordered him held without bail after being told by District Attorney Jason Schmidt that Matar, 24, took steps to deliberately position himself to harm Rushdie, got an early pass to the event where the perpetrator was talking and arrived a day early with a fake ID.
“This was a targeted, unprovoked, pre-planned attack on Mr. Rushdie,” Schmidt said.
Public defender Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities had taken too long to bring Matar before a judge while leaving him “hooked to a bench at state police headquarters.”
“You have that constitutional right to be presumed innocent,” Barone added.
Rushdie, 75, suffered liver damage and severed nerves in his arm and eye, Wylie said Friday night. It was likely that he would lose the injured eye.
The attack was met with shock and outrage from much of the world, along with tributes and praise for the award-winning author who for more than 30 years has faced death threats for “The Satanic Verses.”
Authors, activists and government officials cited Rushdie’s courage and longstanding defense of free speech despite risks to his own safety. Writer and old friend Ian McEwan called rushdie “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 so many of us in the South Asian diaspora towards whom he has shown incredible warmth.”
United States President Joe Biden said saturdayoh in a statement that he and first lady Jill Biden were “shocked and saddened” by the attack.
“Salman Rushdie, with his vision of humanity, with his unrivaled sense of history, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced, represents essential and universal ideals,” the statement read. “Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear. These are the building blocks of any free and open society.”
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 he harshly criticized the then Prime Minister of India. 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, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989.
Khomeini died that same year, but the fatwa is still in force. Iran’s current supreme leader, 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 suspect, born a decade after the publication of “The Satanic Verses,” acted alone.
District Attorney Schmidt alluded to the fatwa as a potential reason to argue against bail.
“Even if this court were to set bail at $1 million, we run the risk that bail may not be posted,” Schmidt said.
“Your resources don’t matter to me. We understand that the agenda that was carried out yesterday is something that was adopted and sanctioned by larger groups and organizations far beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of Chautauqua County,” the prosecutor said.
Barone, the public defender, said after the hearing that Matar has been communicating openly with him and would spend the next few weeks trying to learn about his client, including whether he has psychological or addiction issues.
Matar is from Fairview, NJ Rosaria Calabrese, manager of the State of Fitness Boxing Club, a small, tight-knit gym in nearby North Bergen, said Matar joined on April 11 and participated in about 27 group sessions for beginners looking to improve your fitness before sending an email. she does several days ago to tell him that she wanted to cancel his membership because she “wouldn’t be back for a while.”
Gym owner Desmond Boyle said he saw “nothing violent” in Matar, describing him as polite and quiet, but someone who always looked “terribly sad.” He said Matar resisted attempts by him and others to welcome and engage him.
“He had this look every time he walked in. It looked like it was the worst day of his life,” Boyle said.
Matar was born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Yaroun, in southern Lebanon, the village’s mayor, Ali Tehfe, told The Associated Press.
Flags of the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah are visible throughout the village, along with portraits of leader Hassan Nasrallah, Khamenei, Khomeini and assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
Journalists who visited Yaroun on Saturday were asked to leave. Hezbollah spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran’s theocratic government and its state media did not assign any motive 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.
On Friday, the AP reporter witnessed Rushdie being stabbed or punched 10 to 15 times by the attacker.
The event’s moderator, Henry Reese, 73, 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 police said the trooper made the arrest. But later, some veteran visitors to the Chautauqua Institution questioned why there wasn’t tighter security given the threats against Rushdie and a more than $3 million bounty on his head.
On Saturday, the center said it was increasing security through measures such as requiring photo IDs to purchase entry passes, which previously could be obtained anonymously. Patrons entering the amphitheater where Rushdie was attacked will also be prohibited from carrying bags of any kind.
The changes, along with an increased presence of armed police on the bucolic grounds, surprised Chautauquan residents, who have long enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere the nearly 150-year-old vacation colony is known for.
News of the stabbing has led to renewed interest in “The Satanic Verses,” which topped bestseller lists after the fatwa was issued in 1989. As of Saturday afternoon, the novel was ranked No. 13. on Amazon.com.
The death threats and bounty Rushdie faced for the book after its publication led him into hiding under a British government protection program, which included a 24-hour armed guard. After nine years in seclusion, Rushdie cautiously resumed further public appearances.
In 2012 he published a memoir on the fatwa titled “Joseph Anton”, the pseudonym he used while in hiding.
He said during a talk in New York that year that terrorism was really the art of fear: “The only way you can beat it is by deciding not to be afraid.”
——
Italy reported from New York. Associated Press writer Kareem Chehayeb contributed to this report from Beirut.