Iranian conservative press celebrates attack on Salman Rushdie: “Satan is going to hell”

While the The Iranian political and religious authorities maintain absolute silence Faced with the attack on the writer Salman Rushdie, threatened with death since 1989 by an Iranian regime fatwa, the most conservative press in the country celebrates the crime. “We kiss the hands of him who tore the neck of God’s enemy with a knife”, wrote the newspaper. Keyhan.

The 75-year-old British writer of Indian descent was stabbed this Friday in a public event in the United States by a 24-year-old man identified by police as 24-year-old Hadi Matar. According to the site The mailan initial investigation suggests that Hadi is sympathetic to the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

Rushdie, who remains hospitalized in serious condition and with assisted breathinghas lived since 1989 threatened with death by a fatwa issued by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruholah Khomeini, for his book “The Satanic Verses”.

So far, neither the Iranian government nor religious leaders have made any statements about the attack on the writer. There were also a few media outlets celebrating the attack.

the conservative newspaper Keyhanclose to the supreme leader praised the act and offered “100 blessings of God” to the attacker. “Congratulations to this brave, duty-minded man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York. We kiss the hands of him who tore the neck of the enemy of God with a knife ».

For its part, the newspaper khorasan stated on the cover that “Satan is going to hell”In relation to Rushdie.

For its part, Mohamad Marandithe Iranian communication advisor on talks to save the 2015 nuclear deal tweeted: “I will not shed tears for a writer who denounces Muslims and Islam with infinite hatred and contempt “.

However, not everyone celebrated the attack on the author of midnight children. The Iranian activist Athena Daemirecently released after five years in prison for criticizing the executions, he condemned the attack and accused the Islamic Republic of committing “crimes around the planet”.

Salman Rushdie: bounty of $ 3 million on his head

He always refused to live in isolationbut he had to accept official protection as Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, the first leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, appealed for his assassination on February 14, 1989, following the book he found blasphemous by Muslims.

When three decades had passed since the religious order ordered his assassination, Rushdie thought about it the world was already another.

Visiting France in late 2018, Rushdie explained: “It’s been 30 years. Now everything is fine. I was 41, now 71. We live in a world where worry issues change very quickly. Now there are other reasons to be afraid, other people to kill … “he joked. But the anti-Rushdie sentiment never stopped.

In the fatwa (religious decree), an imam asked “all devout Muslims”. execute the author of the book, the publishers and “those who know its content”, “so that no one insults Islamic sanctities”. And he offered a high reward for the writer’s death: three million dollars.

The fatwa launched against the writer, a US citizen since 2016, has never been revoked e left victims: in July 1991 the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death, and on the same dates the Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was badly injured in an attack.

In 1993 was also the head of the Norwegian publisher of the work, William Nygaard badly wounded by three bullets in the back. The same year, the Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin, escaped the arson in the hotel where members of a cultural festival stayed and in which 37 people died.

With information from EFE.