Writer Salman Rushdie attacked in New York

Salman Rushdie, the writer who for decades had been threatened for his work, was attacked this Friday when he was about to give a conference in western New York. His condition is not yet known.

Rushdie was preparing to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institute when a man in the audience took the stage and threw himself on him and started hitting or stabbing youaccording to an Associated Press reporter present on the spot.

The perpetrator fell to the ground and the attacker was immobilized. The condition of Rushdie, who was quickly removed from the scene in between chaos scenes in the frightened audience, according to a video that appeared on the networks.

The Twitter user charles savenor shared scenes of the incident online.

satanic verses

Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses” it was banned in Iran in 1988, as many Muslims consider him blasphemous. A year later, the then leader of Iran, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.

was also offered a reward of over $ 3 million for those who kill the writer.

The Iranian government has long distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment persists. In 2012, a semi-official Iranian religious foundation increased Rushdie’s reward from $ 2.8 million to $ 3.3 million.

Rushdie dismissed that threat at the time, saying “there was no evidence” that people were interested in the reward.

That year Rushdie released a book of memories, “Joseph Anton”, on the fatwa. In 2015, Rushdie addressed the murder of 12 people in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, claiming that the right to freedom of expression is absolute.

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