The suspect in Friday’s stabbing of Salman Rushdie at a gathering in the US has been charged with attempted murder. After entering a not guilty plea, Hadi Matar was remanded in detention without bond, according to the prosecutor in Chautauqua County, New York State. At the event hosted by a neighborhood educational center, Mr. Matar is accused of storming the stage and assaulting Mr. Rushdie and an interviewer. The author’s health is in critical condition.
For his book The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims consider to be blasphemous, Mr. Rushdie, 75, has received death threats for years. An outpouring of sympathy has been shown, and the attack has been denounced as a violation of the right to free speech. According to his agent, the author has been placed on a ventilator, is unable to talk, and could go blind in one eye. Shortly after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution, police detained Mr. Matar of Fairview, New Jersey.
According to officials, Mr. Rushdie was stabbed at least once in the neck and once in the belly. He has also suffered liver damage. Henry Reese, the interviewer who was with Mr. Rushdie, sustained a slight head injury. The non-profit organization Mr. Reese co-founded offers refuge to writers who have been banished due to persecution. Police say they want to investigate a backpack and electronic equipment they found at the center, but they have not yet revealed a motive or issued any charges.
The 1981 novel Midnight’s Children, written by Indian-born Mr. Rushdie, launched his career and went on to sell over a million copies in the UK alone. However, The Satanic Verses, his fourth book, which came out in 1988, sent him into hiding for almost ten years.
The surrealist, post-modern book provoked indignation among some Muslims because they believed its content to be blasphemous, which is an affront to a religion or god, and it was outlawed in several nation.
