Salman Rushdie stabbed multiple times on stage at NY literary fair 33 years after Iran issued fatwah on him for novel, Satanic Verses
Author Salman Rushdie has been airlifted to hospital after being stabbed multiple times on stage as he prepared to give a speech in New York.
The writer, 75, was attacked as he was being introduced to the stage for the CHQ 2022 event in Chautauqua, near Buffalo, on Friday morning, August 12.
Witnesses claim that a man rushed onto the stage, approached the author from behind, and stabbed him ten to fifteen times.
Blood was spattered on the wall behind where Rushdie had been attacked, with some also seen on a chair.
His current condition is not known.
The interviewer speaking to Rushdie also suffered a minor head injury.
Witnesses claim that the attacker managed to walk off the stage after the stabbing, before being restrained, as people rushed to assist Rushdie.
A man has been arrested by New York state troopers.
Governor Kathy Hochul called the attack on Rushdie “heartbreaking” before confirming that he is “alive.”
She added that he is “getting the care he needs at a local hospital”.
The stabbing comes 33 years after Rushdie received death threats for his book, the Satanic Verses, which supposedly insulted the Prophet Mohammed and The Koran.
The Satanic Verses resulted in a culture war being sparked in 1988 in Britain, with protests taking place in the UK along with book burnings.
It also led to rioting across the Muslim world which resulted in the deaths of 60 people and hundreds being injured.
Pakistan banned the book, and he was issued a fatwa – a death sentence – by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989.
Khomeini called for the death of Rushdie and his publishers, and also called for Muslims to point him out to those who could kill him if they could not do it themselves.
A $3 million bounty was put on his head.
Consequently, the British government put Rushdie under round-the-clock security from 1989 to 2002, at the expense of the British taxpayer.
He was forced to go into hiding for a decade with police protection, and previously reported that he received a “sort of Valentine’s card” from Iran each year letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him.
In 2012, an Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
He has been living in the US since 2000 and once complained of having “too much” security while attending events.
The Indian-born writer was named a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University in 2015.
He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, including for Midnight’s Children, in 1983 for Shame, in 1988 for The Satanic Verses, in 1995 for The Moor’s Last Sign, and in 2019 for Quichotte.
