Salman Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked Friday as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.
An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced. The author was taken or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained.
Joshua Goodman / AP
Rushdie’s condition was not immediately known.
Video said to be of the aftermath of the attack was posted on social media.
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.
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.
Hannelore Foerster / Getty Images
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.
“Both John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela use the same three-word phrase which in my mind says it all, which is, ‘Freedom is Indivisible,'” he said. “You can’t slice it up, otherwise it ceases to be freedom. You can dislike Charlie Hebdo. … But the fact that you dislike them has nothing to do with their right to speak.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.