The author of The Satanic Verses had surgery to cure a ruptured eye and liver after being stabbed around 12 times in the face and neck
Earlier, Sir Salman’s representative Andrew Wylie had stated that the 75-year-old was on a ventilator and would lose an eye due to the premeditated attack’s damage to his arm and liver.
The Indian-born British author, whose book The Satanic Verses sparked death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked as he prepared to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State, 65 miles from Buffalo.
In shocking video from the occasion, spectators can be seen rushing onto the stage to assist the writer after the assault.
New York governor Kathy Hochul said that a state police officer saved his life and that of the moderator, who she said was also attacked.
In what a prosecution termed a “pre-planned” attack, the man accused of stabbing Sir Salman entered a not guilty plea on Saturday to counts of attempted murder and assault.
Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, had a formal hearing at a court in western New York, where his attorney entered the plea on his behalf.
Matar arrived in court with his hands chained in front of him, donning a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask.
A judge ordered him to be held without bail after district attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in a position to harm Sir Salman, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early with a fake ID.
“This was a targeted, unprovoked, pre-planned attack on Mr Rushdie,” Mr Schmidt said.
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The state had kept Matar “hooked up to a bench in the state police barracks,” according to public defender Nathaniel Barone, while taking too long to bring him before a court.
He is entitled to the presumption of innocent under the Constitution, Mr. Barone continued.
Henry Reese, who was scheduled to speak with Sir Salman during the occasion, was injured slightly in the head. He is a co-founder of a nonprofit group that offers safety to authors who are fleeing persecution.
Sir Salman was scheduled to deliver a lecture prior to the assault about how the US has provided as a refuge for these authors.
After The Satanic Verses, which many Muslims consider blasphemous and has been prohibited in Iran since it was released in 1988, the author was driven into hiding for over ten years.
There was also a $3 million bounty on his head for anyone who would murder him.
Iran applauded the attack on Sir Salman, calling him a “heretic” on state television and printed the headline “Satan on the path to hell” in The Khorasan newspaper.
Rishi Sunak urged for greater sanctions in reaction to Iran’s response, saying the stabbing should serve as a “wake-up call for the West.”
The Tory leadership aspirant called for an immediate “strengthened deal and substantially heavier sanctions” and described the situation in Iran as “very dangerous.”
Iran’s current government has distanced itself from the fatwa and threats of violence against him but he still faces widespread anger over his writing.
One of the author’s online followers wrote: “It is abhorrent to see these developments on the renowned novelist Salman Rushdie, who has been the target of a fatwa since 1989 because of The Satanic Verses. His collection of essays, Imaginary Homelands, continues to be one of my favorites. I hope he bounces back from this.”
Mr. Johnson stated: “We should never stop defending Sir Salman Rushdie’s right to freedom of expression, and we are horrified by this.
“My thoughts are currently with his family. All of us are hope he’s alright.”
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, said: “Salman Rushdie has served as a longtime representative of the fight for liberty and freedom against those who would want to stifle them.
“These ideals are under threat as a result of yesterday’s vicious assault on him. His complete recovery is in the prayers of the whole Labour Party.”
Before penning Midnight’s Children, a book about the founding of India that won the Booker Prize in 1981, Sir Salman started his literary career in the early 1970s with two failed works.
After the fatwa, the author lived in secrecy for several years in London under a British government protection scheme.
Sir Salman gradually reentered public life when the Iranian government stopped supporting the death penalty in 1998. He even made an appearance as himself in the 2001 movie Bridget Jones’s Diary.
The money was gathered to increase the prize for the murder of Sir Salman as recently as 2016, according to the Index on Censorship, an organization that supports free speech, highlighting the fact that the fatwa is still in effect.
He received a knighthood in 2008, and as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honors earlier this year, he was inducted into the Order of the Companions of Honour.
The source used in the creation of a news story: https://www.lbc.co.uk
