After days of silence with the attacker who stabbed British author Salman Rushdie, author of the book “The Satanic Verses,” 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa, today the Iranian government “categorically” denied any connection. sentenced the author to death.
Foreign ministry spokesman Naser Kanani said, “We categorically reject any relationship between the aggressor and Iran. And no one has the right to blame the Islamic Republic.”
This was Tehran’s first official response to the attack on the 75-year-old boy in the amphitheater of a cultural center in Chautauqua, New York.
“We do not consider anyone worthy of accusing or even condemning this attack, except Salman Rushdie and his supporters,” Kanani said at a weekly press conference in Tehran.
“Salman Rushdie has incurred the wrath and anger of the people by insulting the sacred themes of Islam and crossing the red lines of more than 1.5 billion Muslims and members of all divine religions.”
The British writer, who was hospitalized with serious injuries after the attack, is recovering, according to his family. Literary agent Andrew Wylie said he no longer needs the help of a ventilator and is starting to recover.
“Million Revolt”
Born in 1947 in India to a family of impractical Muslim intellectuals, Salman Rushdie set a part of the Muslim world on fire with the publication of “The Satanic Verses” in 1988, which was considered blasphemy by the most rigorous. The work of the Qur’an and Hz. He thinks it is an insult to Muhammad.
In 1989, the founder of the Islamic Republic issued a fatwa demanding the death of Rushdie, who had lived under police protection for years.
The fatwa against the author was never withdrawn, and many translators of his work were attacked, including the 1991 stabbing that killed his Japanese translator.
“The anger shown at that time was not limited to Iran and the Islamic Republic. Millions of people in Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim countries reacted angrily to Salman Rushdie’s work,” Iranian diplomacy spokesman said.
Kanani considered it “totally contradictory to condemn the act of the aggressor and justify the act of the one who simultaneously insults sacred and Islamic themes”.
The assailant, Hadi Matar, is a 24-year-old Lebanese-American teenager charged with “attempted murder and attempted assault.” He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that Iranian state media “celebrate” the attack on the intellectual.
“This is vile,” he said in a statement.
The ultra-conservative Iranian newspaper Kayhan praised Matar for highlighting “this brave and dutiful man who attacked the wicked and apostate Salman Rushdie”.
Javan, another ultra-conservative newspaper, wrote on Sunday that this was a US conspiracy with the “possible” intent of “spreading Islamophobia around the world”.
The issue is sensitive in Iran. Several people AFP spoke to in Tehran recently declined to comment on the attack on Salman Rushdie, while others congratulated the attack.
source: Noticias
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