crime
After attack: Salman Rushdie is currently undergoing surgery
Video still from the moment after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution: the alleged attacker (l) is escorted off the stage while people attend to Salman Rushdie. photo
© Uncredited/AP/dpa
Although he was sentenced to death by fatwa more than 30 years ago, according to his publisher, Salman Rushdie actually felt safer again. Now the award-winning author has been attacked.
According to police reports, surgery is still in progress after the attack on Salman Rushdie. Police spokesman James O’Callaghan said at a news conference in upstate New York on Friday.
The writer, who was sentenced to death by fatwa more than 30 years ago, was attacked and injured in the neck during a performance in upstate New York. A man “rushed onto the stage” at the Chautauqua town hall this morning and assaulted Rushdie and an interviewer, New York police said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in the city of Buffalo that Rushdie is getting the help he needs at the hospital. “It was a state cop who stood up and saved his (Rushdie’s) life, protected him,” she said, thanking the aide. The 75-year-old writer had previously been taken to a nearby hospital by helicopter.
Because of Rushdie’s work “The Satanic Verses” from 1988, the Iranian revolutionary leader at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini, published a fatwa calling for the author to be killed. Some Muslims felt their religious sensibilities were offended by the work.
The perpetrator was arrested
Police identified the attacker as a 24-year-old American from New Jersey. According to initial findings, he probably acted without accomplices. “At this point we assume he was alone but we are trying to make sure he was,” police spokesman O’Callaghan said. A backpack was secured at the crime scene. A number of search warrants are also sought.
The perpetrator was arrested in the hall after the attack on Friday. The “New York Times” quoted a witness: “There was only one attacker. He was dressed in black. He had on loose black clothing. He ran towards him at lightning speed.” An Associated Press reporter said the attacker punched or stabbed Rushdie 10 to 15 times. The interviewer, who was also attacked, has a head injury, police said.
There were initially no details about the background to the attack. It is still unclear whether this is related to the decades-old fatwa.
At the time, the Ayatollah’s Islamic legal opinion not only called for the killing of Rushdie, but also of all those who were involved in distributing the book. A Japanese translator was later actually killed. Rushdie had to go into hiding and was given police protection. According to information from his publisher last year, the fatwa no longer had any meaning for Rushdie. He is no longer restricted in his freedom of movement and no longer needs bodyguards. However, the years of hiding did not leave him untouched. He processed this time in the 2012 autobiography “Joseph Anton”, named after his alias.
horror at the act
The act sparked global outrage. New York Gov. Hochul called the attack on Rushdie a “terrible event” and wrote on Twitter: “Our thoughts are with Salman and his loved ones following this horrific event.”
Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was appalled that Rushdie “was stabbed in the exercise of a right that we should always defend”.
Harry Potter author Joanne K. Rowling and best-selling author Stephen King also expressed their dismay and wrote that they hope Rushdie is doing well.
The author was born in the year of Indian independence in 1947 in the metropolis of Mumbai (then Bombay). He later studied history at King’s College, Cambridge. He had his breakthrough as an author with the book “Midnight’s Children” (“Midnight’s Children”), which was awarded the prestigious Booker Prize in 1981. In it he tells the story of India’s detachment from the British Empire based on the life stories of protagonists who are born at the precise moment of independence and are endowed with supernatural abilities.
The truth in jeopardy
In all, Rushdie has published more than two dozen fiction, non-fiction, and other writings. Rushdie’s style is referred to as Magic Realism, in which realistic events are interwoven with fantastic events. Nevertheless, he is absolutely committed to the truth.
He sees this increasingly in danger, which is also the focus of his most recent publication of essays, which came out in Germany under the title “Languages of Truth”. The writer, who has lived in New York for many years, braces himself against Trumpists and corona deniers. “The truth is a struggle, there’s no question. And maybe never more than now,” he said in an interview with US broadcaster PBS last year.