![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Rushdie easily, running onstage and approaching him from behind. Several witnesses said the attacker was able to reach Mr. “Then it became apparent that it was clearly not a stunt,” she said. Mary Newsom, who attended the lecture, said that some people thought at first that it might be a stunt. Audience members gasped and leaped to their feet. Rushdie, the police and several witnesses said. Reese, the co-founder of a Pittsburgh nonprofit, City of Asylum, a residency program for exiled writers, when a man rushed the stage and attacked Mr. Rushdie had just sat down onstage with the discussion’s moderator, Mr. On Friday morning at around 10:47 a.m., Mr. Rushdie, who lived in London at the time, went into hiding, and moved into a fortified safe house under the protection of the British police for most of the next 10 years. A price was put on his head of several million dollars. ![]() Rushdie had effectively been living under a death sentence since 1989, about six months after the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which fictionalized parts of the life of the Prophet Muhammad with depictions that many Muslims found offensive and some considered blasphemous.Īyatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, issued a religious edict known as a fatwa on Feb. “The fact that this attack could occur in the United States is indicative of the threats to writers from many governments and from many individuals and organizations.” “We revere him and our paramount concern is for his life,” said Mr. Rushdie was “one of the great authors of our time and one of the great defenders of freedom of speech and freedom of creative expression.” Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, which promotes free expression, said in a statement that “we can think of no comparable incident of a public attack on a literary writer on American soil.”Īfter he was released from the hospital, Mr. Rushdie was tended to moments after the attack. Rushdie to moderate the discussion, suffered an injury to his face during the attack and was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon, the police said. Ralph Henry Reese, 73, who was onstage with Mr. Rushdie appeared to have multiple stab wounds, including one on the right side of his neck, but that people surrounding him were saying, “he has a pulse, he has a pulse.” A physician in attendance, Rita Landman, said that Mr. Rushdie’s cheek and pooling on the floor. “It took like five men to pull him away and he was still stabbing,” said Linda Abrams, who attended the lecture in the front row. The attack stunned onlookers, who had gathered in the 4,000-seat amphitheater at the Chautauqua Institution, a summertime destination for literary and arts programming. He said that the police were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local sheriff’s office and that investigators were in the process of obtaining search warrants for a backpack and electronic devices that were found at the institution. Staniszewski of the New York State Police identified the suspect in the attack as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man who was arrested at the scene, but said at a news conference late Friday afternoon that there was no indication yet of a motive. “Salman will likely lose one eye the nerves in his arm were severed and his liver was stabbed and damaged.” Rushdie was on a ventilator and could not speak. Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, said Friday evening that Mr. Rushdie was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital in Erie, Pa., where he was in surgery for several hours on Friday afternoon. Rushdie, 75, in the abdomen and the neck, the police and witnesses said, straining to continue the attack even as several people held him back. Rushdie was scheduled to give a talk about the United States as a safe haven for exiled writers. On Friday morning, any sense that threats to his life were a thing of the past was dispelled when an attacker rushed the stage of Chautauqua Institution here in Western New York, where Mr. Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after the leadership of Iran called for his death following the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” But in recent years, declaring “Oh, I have to live my life,” he re-entered society, regularly appearing in public around New York City without evident security. Herman for The New York TimesĬHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. The author has faced death threats for his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses.” Credit Credit. Salman Rushdie was stabbed while onstage in Chautauqua, N.Y., the state police said. ![]()
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