Iran has denied any link to the Salman Rushdie stabbing and has blamed the perpetrator and his supporters for the attack that left him with life-changing injuries.
“Regarding the attack on Salman Rushdie, we do not consider anyone other than [Rushdie] and their supporters worthy of blame and even condemnation,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said at a televised news conference on Monday, marking the country’s first public reaction to the attack.
“We haven’t seen anything else about the individual who performed this act other than what we’ve seen from the American media. We categorically and seriously deny any connection of the aggressor to Iran,” Kanaani said, according to Iranian state media.
Rushdie, an acclaimed Indian-born British author, has received death threats for decades after Iran issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for his death following the 1988 release of his book The Satanic Verses.
He spent nearly a decade living under British protection before moving to the United States in recent years and was repeatedly stabbed during an attack on stage in western New York on Friday.
The suspect, identified as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty Saturday to second-degree attempted murder and other charges.
While Iran did not officially comment on the attack over the weekend, several hard-line Iranian newspapers praised the suspect on Saturday — including the conservative Kayhan newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“A thousand brave, a hundred God bless. His hand must be kissed… Bravo to the warrior and obedient man who attacked the apostate and evil Salman Rushdie. The warrior’s hand must be kissed. He tore the vein in Rushdie’s neck,” the paper said.
Another hardline newspaper, Khorasan, ran a headline, “The Devil on the Road to Hell,” while showing a picture of Rushdie on a stretcher.
Rushdie – the son of a successful Muslim businessman in India – was educated in England, first at the Rugby School and later at Cambridge University, where he received a master’s degree in history.
The publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 made him a household name and brought him notoriety. The Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued the fatwa against him a year later.
The bounty against Rushdie was never raised, however, in 1998 the Iranian government sought to distance itself from the fatwa by vowing not to attempt to execute it.
But in February 2017, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reaffirmed the religious decree.
And in 2019, Khamenei tweeted that Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie was “solid and irrevocable”, prompting Twitter to place a restriction on his account.
Lauren Said-Moorhouse of CNN contributed to this story.
Source: CNN Brasil
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