Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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Salman Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked and apparently stabbed in the neck Friday by a man who rushed the stage as he was about to give a lecture in western New York. An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man confront Rushdie on stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing him 10 to 15 times as he was being introduced. The 75-year-old author was pushed or fell to the floor, and the man was arrested. Rushdie was taken by helicopter to a hospital, state police said. His condition was not immediately known.

Rabbi Charles Savenor was among the hundreds of people in the audience. Amid gasps, spectators were ushered out of the outdoor amphitheater. “This guy ran on to platform and started pounding on Mr. Rushdie. At first you’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then it became abundantly clear in a few seconds that he was being beaten,” Savenor said. He said the attack lasted about 20 seconds. A bloodied Rushdie was quickly surrounded by a small group of people who held up his legs, presumably to send more blood to his chest.

Rushdie has been a prominent spokesman for free expression and liberal causes. He is a former president of PEN America, which said it was “reeling from shock and horror” at the attack. “We can think of no comparable incident of a public violent attack on a literary writer on American soil,” CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement. “Salman Rushdie has been targeted for his words for decades but has never flinched nor faltered,” she added.
His 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” was viewed as blasphemous by many Muslims. Often-violent protests against Rushdie erupted around the w world, including a riot that killed 12 people in Mumbai [Bombay]. The novel was banned in Iran, where the late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. A bounty of over $3 million has also been offered for anyone who kills Rushdie. The death threats and bounty led Rushdie to go into hiding under a British government protection program, including a round-the-clock armed guard. Rushdie emerged after nine years of seclusion and cautiously resumed more public appearances, maintaining his outspoken criticism of religious extremism overall.
https://apnews.com/article/salman-rushd ... 1ecd42227a

In France offices of the weekly periodical "Charlie Hebdo" were firebombed in 2011 for its critical satire of Islam and in 2015 its offices were attacked and 12 staff members were killed. Even today it spends over one million Euros annually on security due to Islamic threats.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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Police said the suspect, identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar from Fairview, New Jersey, was restrained by members of the audience just after attacking Rushdie and taken into custody by a state trooper. The man attacked Rushdie around 11 a.m. as the author was being introduced to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution.

Rushdie was initially given medical treatment by a doctor that was in the audience before he was airlifted to a local hospital, where he was still undergoing surgery Friday afternoon. By Friday evening, Rushdie was on a ventilator and could not speak, his agent, Andrew Wylie, told the New York Times, adding that he will likely lose one eye, the nerves in his arm were severed, and that his liver was stabbed and damaged. State police said the FBI was assisting with the investigation into the attack and that there was not enough evidence to determine a motive as of Friday afternoon.
In 1989, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran called for Rushdie's death and put a bounty of more than $3 million on his head over his book "The Satanic Verses," which was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Rushdie spent nine years in hiding under a British government protection program.
https://www.axios.com/2022/08/12/salman ... chautauqua

The man arrested in Friday’s stabbing of famed novelist Salman Rushdie was identified by police as a New Jersey man, who law enforcement sources tell The Post he had sympathies toward the Iranian government that has called for Rushdie’s death.
Law enforcement sources told The Post that an initial investigation suggests Matar has made social media posts in support of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard, and in support of Shi’a extremism more broadly.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/12/nj-man-ma ... n-rushdie/

Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh (yes related to Vincent) made a film called "Submission" about Islam, he was later assassinated by a Moroccan terrorist.

Yes religion at work.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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Iranians reacted with praise and worry Saturday over the attack on novelist Salman Rushdie, the target of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death. It remains unclear why Rushdie’s attacker, identified by police as Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, stabbed the author as he prepared to speak at an event Friday in western New York. Iran’s theocratic government and its state-run media have assigned no motive to the assault.

But in Tehran, some willing to speak to The Associated Press offered praise for an attack targeting a writer they believe tarnished the Islamic faith with his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses.” In the streets of Iran’s capital, images of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini still peer down at passers-by. “I don’t know Salman Rushdie, but I am happy to hear that he was attacked since he insulted Islam,” said Reza Amiri, a 27-year-old deliveryman. “This is the fate for anybody who insults sanctities.” Others, however, worried aloud that Iran could become even more cut off from the world as tensions remain high over its tattered nuclear deal.
While fatwas can be revised or revoked, Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who took over after Khomeini has never done so. “The decision made about Salman Rushdie is still valid,” Khamenei said in 1989. “As I have already said, this is a bullet for which there is a target. It has been shot. It will one day sooner or later hit the target.”

As recently as February 2017, Khamenei tersely answered this question posed to him: “Is the fatwa on the apostasy of the cursed liar Salman Rushdie still in effect? What is a Muslim’s duty in this regard?” Khamenei responded: “The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued.”
https://apnews.com/article/sacred-river ... 78496aa3dc

Sir Salman Rushdie was knighted by the Queen in 2007, though a British subject he's lived since 2000 in the US. The academic who translated Rushdie's novel "Satan Verses" into Japanese was stabbed to death in 1991 in Japan.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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Iranian clerics are also politicians, it's a theocracy - the state and church are one. As they define it, an offense against Shia Islam is an offense against the State of Iran and they dole out "fatwas" or clerical decrees like they are state proclamations. They want to be accepted as an equal by Western secular societies, but they won't reciprocate. Wealthy clerics dominate the state, money rules.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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tonguengroover wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 11:59 am He should have had a gun on him. If I was Rushdie I would have had a CCW permit for sure.
Rushdie is a British citizen, he'd only be eligible in some states if he was a legal permanent resident of the US. Even if he is an LPR I don't know if he could have gotten a license to carry, this happened in New York state south of Buffalo. There was a NY state trooper and a sheriff's deputy, but Matar was very fast. It's the fault of the Chautauqua officials, there was very little security.
The institution's leadership had rejected recommendations for basic security measures, including bag checks and metal detectors, fearing that would create a divide between speakers and the audience, according to two sources who spoke with CNN. The leadership also feared that it would change the culture at the institution, the sources said.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/13/us/salma ... index.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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That’s because Chautauqua is a private island, walled off from the world, a haven of white intellectual elites. Everyone had their guards down.

Anyway, he is alive thank goodness

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/salm ... omthetimes
Sir Salman Rushdie is said to be “conscious and alert” after being stabbed more than a dozen times while giving a speech about freedom of expression.

The news is the first positive indication of the author’s condition to emerge as he remains in hospital after the attack on Friday in upstate New York.

Rushdie was also said to be “off the ventilator and talking (and joking)”, according to a since-deleted tweet by fellow writer Aatish Taseer. Andrew Wylie, Rushdie’s literary agent, confirmed the information without giving further details.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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Glad to hear Rushdie is off the ventilator and talking, he's probably on some strong pain meds. The suspect Hadi Matar was arraigned and pled not guilty. Bail was denied and the prosecutor stated that the attempted assassination was carefully planned.
In the hours before the attack, Matar is said to have spent the night at the Athenaeum hotel, in the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution, according to the Post. The hotel, which is 400 miles from his home address, is described as “comfortable and beautiful” on its website. He is also said to have dined at the hotel’s Heirloom restaurant where the fixed menu costs $62 for three courses.

When arrested, Matar was allegedly carrying a fake driving license with the surname of a Hezbollah commander, US media reported.
Matar is reported to have been born in California, but his parents are from a town in southern Lebanon controlled by Hezbollah. Hezbollah ["Party of God"] is a Lebanese Shia terrorist organization controlled by Iran.

Wonder if this is connected to the botched assassination attempts on John Bolton and Mike Pompeo by Iran.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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An Iranian government official denied on Monday that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie, though he justified the stabbing in remarks that represented the Islamic Republic’s first public comments on the attack. The comments by Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, came more than two days after the attack on Rushdie in New York. The writer has now been taken off a ventilator and is “on the road to recovery,” according to his agent.

However, Iran has denied carrying out other operations abroad targeting dissidents in the years since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite prosecutors and Western governments attributing such attacks back to Tehran. And while Iran hasn’t focused on the writer in recent years, a decades-old fatwa demanding his killing still stands. “In this regard, no one can blame the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added. “We believe that the insults made and the support he received was an insult against followers of all religions.”
https://apnews.com/article/salman-rushd ... ac400f9db8

Iranian media have extensively commented on the attack, calling it "divine retribution". Iran's state broadcaster daily Jaam-e Jam highlighted the news that Rushdie might lose an eye following the attack, saying "an eye of the Satan has been blinded".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62546469
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Author Salman Rushdie stabbed onstage in Chautauqua, NY

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CDFingers wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 8:57 am Religions have been responsible for too many unnecessary deaths. People ought to need a license to practice a religion, needing to be of verifiably good moral character. That sure would cut down on mega churches and thereby, wars and violence of this kind.

CDFingers
The best way to tame the righteous horde in my opinion, it through taxation. It could be as little as .01% but that would open their accounting records to the IRS and we could know where all the money is going. Minds still young enough to change just might.
This isn't going well, is it?

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