They Finally Got Him! Salman Rushdie “Satanic Verses Writer” Attacked In N.Y!

 

Author Salman Rushdie stabbed in the neck while on lecture stage in New York, police say

Rushdie was quickly surrounded by a small group of people who held up his legs, presumably to send more blood to his chest.

Police said that the suspect also attacked an interviewer, who suffered a minor head injury.

Hundreds of people in the audience gasped at the sight of the attack and were then evacuated.

“Our thoughts are with Salman & his loved ones following this horrific event,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul tweeted after the attack.

Rushdie was at the event to discuss “the United States as asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression,” according to the Chautauqua Institution.

We are dealing with an emergency situation. I can share no further details at this time,” a Chautauqua Institution spokesperson told Reuters.

Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses” has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims consider it to be blasphemous. A year later, Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.

Iran’s government has long since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment lingered. In 2012, a semi-official Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.

Rushdie dismissed that threat at the time, saying there was “no evidence” of people being interested in the reward. That year, Rushdie published a memoir, “Joseph Anton,” about his experience living under the fatwa.

In 2015, Rushdie addressed the killings of 12 people at the Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, saying the right to free speech is absolute or else it isn’t free.