A new video shows audience members tackling a knifeman minutes after he stabbed Salman Rushdie on stage in New York, while the author sits on a ventilator, unable to talk, and faces losing an eye today.
People can be heard shouting and gasping in the three-minute tape, as a dozen audience members rush to the stage and throng around the assailant, who has been dragged to the ground by a police officer.
Meanwhile, only meters away, many audience members seem to surround the author and assist in his treatment beneath an event banner as anxious attendees watch on.
The footage was uploaded by an attendee at the CHQ 2022 event in Chautauqua, New York, who claimed he began shooting 10 seconds after the incident began, during which witnesses recounted a masked guy rushing the platform and striking Rushdie repeatedly before being tackled.
Members of the crowd clap and shout as Rushdie seems to be carried off stage before being stretchered to an air ambulance and flown to hospital for emergency surgery.
Andrew Wylie, his agent, provided an update on his status, saying, ‘The news is not good.’ Salman would most certainly lose one sight, his arm’s nerves were cut, and his liver was stabbed and wounded.’
Rushdie was injured in the neck and abdomen while attending the CHQ 2022 event in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday morning.
An event organizer addressed the remaining attendees, instructing them to leave the auditorium peacefully and take all possessions with them, threatening to seize any objects left behind.
Authorities raided the residence of 24-year-old suspect Hadi Matar in Fairview, New Jersey, hours after he reportedly assaulted Rushdie onstage at the literary event in upstate New York.
As bystanders raced to help Rushdie, Matar, who police claim got entrance to the grounds with a permit, managed to walk off the stage before being stopped.
According to law enforcement authorities, an early inquiry indicates that Matar is sympathetic to the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, despite the fact that he was born roughly nine years after the fatwa against Rushdie was pronounced.
Event moderator Henry Reese, 73, was also assaulted. He is a co-founder of an organization that provides residencies to authors suffering persecution. He and Rushdie were scheduled to talk about the United States as a safe haven for authors and other artists in exile.
Reese was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon, and in an emailed statement to the New York Times, he called Rushdie “one of the great defenders of free speech and creative expression,” adding, “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.”
Meanwhile, it has been reported that the guy suspected of stabbing Rushdie had a phony driver’s license with the surname of a notorious Hezbollah leader on it.
Rushdie has previously faced death threats as a result of his work, with his novel The Satanic Verses igniting riots in 1988.
For his 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, British-born Booker Prize winner Sir Salman Rushdie (seen in 2019) received death threats and a fatwah from Iran. He has resided in the United States since 2000 and was planning to deliver a talk today on America being a safe refuge for authors in exile.
The driver’s license discovered on Hadi Mater, 24, carried the name Hassan Mughniyah. The first and second names are both associated with the notorious terrorist group Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah is the current head of the organisation. While Imad Mughniyeh, one of the group’s most known members, was slain in a CIA-linked assassination in Syria in 2008.
According to NBC New York, Mater’s social media profiles indicated that he was sympathetic to Shia causes, including support for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The IRGC has been affiliated to Hezbollah since the 1980s, providing training and finance to the largely Lebanon-based terrorist group. The IRGC inspired Hezbollah’s logo.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, ‘the Iran-backed organisation is motivated by its antagonism to Israel and its resistance to Western involvement in the Middle East.’
According to witnesses, the suspect wore black clothes and a black mask during the assault on the author of The Satanic Verses in Buffalo on Friday.
Authorities raided Hadi Matar’s Fairview, New Jersey home hours after he reportedly assaulted Rushdie onstage at a literary event in upstate New York.
The driver’s license also mentioned an address in West New York, New Jersey, which was less than three miles away from his reported location in Fairview, New Jersey.
According to the Algemeiner, a Twitter account associated to Iranian official media, ‘Iran in Arabic,’ uploaded a photo of Matar next to a portrait of Salman Rushdie with the caption: ‘Lebanese hero who stabbed Satan.’ Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, in which he attacked Muhammad, the Prophet of God’s wisdom and kindness.’
Rushdie’s friend and supporter Baroness D’Souza thinks the danger has been around for a long time.
Baroness D’Souza, a former House of Lords speaker and cross-party peer, has stated the assault on Sir Salman Rushdie has been a “long time coming.”
After Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie, Baroness D’Souza initiated a decade-long campaign in favor of the writer and has remained close friends with Rushdie.
‘I’d have to say that I believe there will be many, many people who are not as surprised as we should be,’ she told Times Radio. It took a long time, but the fatwa was never withdrawn; it couldn’t be repealed because Ayatollah Khomeini died, and the fatwa died with him.
‘It cannot be reversed. And I suppose that in today’s society, when any filler considered to be against a fanatical Islamic minority is to be punished with violence, this is virtually the norm.
‘Recall, for example, Charlie Hebdo, which murdered 12 individuals in 2015 just for printing a cartoon depicting profit.
‘So, even though Salman waged a valiant war not to allow censorship to triumph, not to allow the Fatwa to restrict him or his work – and he did so valiantly for a long time – I’m not convinced the battle has been won. […] I wasn’t as surprised as others since the danger has been around for a long time.
‘And, as I previously said, there were those who believed that the only way this would stop is if he was assaulted in the many, many, many, many long hours I spent with someone, with friends, and with other authors in the past. And that has happened.’
Mater relocated from California to New Jersey in 2014, according to the Daily Beast. Matar went to the Elizabeth Learning Center in Cudahy, California, which is located just outside of Los Angeles.
Gabriel Sanchez, a classmate of the suspect, told the publication that Matar was a “very devoted Muslim.”
‘He took it seriously and performed the foot washing in our high school lavatory,’ he continued.
‘The only time I ever saw him become “hot” about anything was with our AP Bio instructor at the end of the year, when he stated in his rating of the class that he despised how he spoke about religion,’ Sanchez said.
‘He was a devoted Muslim, and one of the few things I recall talking to him about was compassion,’ he said. That’s how I remember him, and it’s why I wish this wasn’t him.’
Many Muslims considered Rushdie’s work to be blasphemous in the 1980s, and at least 45 people were murdered in riots over it, leading to its prohibition in Iran, where the late leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s execution in 1989.
Rushdie went into hiding in a British government-funded protection program for nine years, until he reappeared and carefully started more public appearances, maintaining his outspoken condemnation of religious fanaticism in general. He has lived in the United States from the year 2000.
The incident happened at the Chautauqua Institution, a lakeside hamlet 70 miles south of Buffalo that sponsors artistic events.
Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor who was in attendance at the event, told AFP that he witnessed the suspect jump onto the platform where Rushdie was sitting and knife him repeatedly and violently.
According to LeVan, a regular at Chautauqua, the suspect ‘was attempting to stab him as many times as possible until he was restrained,’ and he believes the attacker ‘was trying to murder’ Rushdie.
‘There were cries of terror and fear from the audience,’ recalled the lecturer.
Witnessing the tragedy had left LeVan’shaken,’ he added, adding that Chautauqua was a safe haven for artistic expression.
‘Knowing this occurred here and seeing it was horrible,’ he added. ‘I witnessed the essence of bigotry today.’ Another witness, John Stein, told ABC that the offender stabbed him on the right side of the head, near the neck. And there was blood… oozing.’
Blood was splattered on the wall behind where Rushdie was assaulted, as well as on a chair he was seated on.
During an unrelated news conference, Governor Kathy Hochul termed the assault on Rushdie “heartbreaking” before announcing that he is “alive.”
She went on to say that he is ‘receiving the treatment he needs at a nearby hospital,’ and that a state police trooper’stood up and saved his life’ after the incident.
Rushdie, according to Hochul, “spent decades speaking truth to power.”
According to one eyewitness, Rushdie had been stabbed “many times” and was lying in a pool of his own blood.
Rita Landman tried to help after the event, saying he looked to be alive but did not get CPR.
‘People were repeating, ‘He has a pulse, he has a pulse, he has a pulse,’ recounted Landman.
When the incident occurred, Roger Warner of Cleveland, Ohio, was seated in the first row, and he was covered in blood, with blood trickling down onto the floor.
‘I simply saw blood all around his eyes and down his face,’ she said.
Rushdie’s 42-year-old son Zafar, who lives in London, is aware of the event, and his father was spotted being carried by air ambulance after the assault.
Thousands of people in the crowd gasped as they saw the incident and were evacuated when his accused assailant was apprehended.
‘There was a big security breakdown,’ said John Bulette, 85, who observed the incident. It was terrifying that someone could approach so near without any interference.’
An attendant at the amphitheater alleges that security at the Institution was ‘loose,’ with no extra precautions in place for Mr Rushdie’s visit.
‘It’s extremely open, it’s very approachable, it’s a really easygoing setting, in my view something like this was just waiting to happen,’ said Kyle Doershuk, 20.
‘We are dealing with an emergency issue,’ said a representative for the Chautauqua Institution. At this moment, I am unable to provide any other information.’
According to Rabbi Charles Savenor, the whole assault lasted around 20 seconds.
‘This person went onto the platform and began hitting on Mr. Rushdie,’ he claimed. ‘What’s going on?’ you wonder at first.
In a matter of seconds, it became evident that he was being beaten.’
A spokeswoman from Pakistan’s embassy in Washington D.C.’s Iranian interests division refused to comment on the incident.
The embassy represents the Iranian government diplomatically in the United States.
They informed the New York Times, “We are not getting engaged in this,” before hanging up and refusing to identify themselves.
Senator George Borrello called the incident “shocking,” adding that “beliefs that demand you murder someone who disagrees with you” have “no place.”
‘This appalling assault on a respected and recognized novelist, evidently inspired by fundamentalist fanaticism, has no place in America,’ he said.
‘I am appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie has been stabbed while exercising a privilege that we must never stop to protect,’ stated UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
‘Right now, my thoughts are with his family.’ We’re all hopeful he’ll be well.’
‘This horrible attack on my good friend Salman constitutes an assault on freedom of thought and expression,’ said author Ian McEwan of Rushdie.
‘These are the liberties that support all of our other rights and liberties.’
‘Salman has been an inspiring advocate for persecuted authors and journalists all across the globe.
‘He is a fiery and generous soul, a guy of enormous intellect and bravery, and he will not be discouraged,’ says the author.
In 2007, the author was knighted in the United Kingdom for “services to literature” by his friend, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.
His most recent work of writing was about an assassination attempt, with Sub Stack serializing a novella called The Seventh Wave, which seems to center on espionage and assassins.
Rushdie had previously received death threats for his work, allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed and the Koran in his book The Satanic Verses. He published the Satanic Verses, which caused a cultural war in the United Kingdom in 1988, with demonstrations and book burnings taking place.
Winner of the Booker Prize Salman Rushdie went into hiding for years after Iran sent him a’spiritual’ death threat.
Sir Salman Rushdie is a writer and author who has won the Booker Prize.
The 75-year-old was born in India, and his work often explores the ties and migrations between Western and Eastern cultures.
Midnight’s Children, his second book, received the Booker Prize in 1981. His work has inspired 30 book-length studies and over 700 pieces.
Rushdie’s works have received widespread praise in the categories of magical realism and historical fiction.
He has been a resident of the United States since 2000, and in 2015 he was awarded a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.
He has been nominated for the Booker Prize five novels, notably for Midnight’s Children in 1983, Shame in 1988, The Satanic Versus in 1995, and Quichotte in 2019.
Rushdie, 75, is an accomplished author and writer of Indian origin.
Rushdie, 75, is an accomplished author and writer of Indian origin.
Pakistan outlawed the book, while Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa – a death sentence – in February 1989.
Khomeini asked for the execution of Rushdie and his publishers, as well as for Muslims to alert anyone who could murder him if they couldn’t.
The fatwa, or’spiritual opinion,’ came after a wave of book burnings in Britain and unrest around the Muslim world that killed 60 people and wounded hundreds more.
Rushdie was subjected to 24-hour security from 1989 until 2002, at the cost of the British government, after a $3 million reward was placed on his head.
He was forced to go into hiding for a decade while under police protection, and he previously said that he received a “kind of Valentines card” from Iran each year reminding him that the government had not forgotten its pledge to murder him.
Rushdie’s reward was increased from $2.8 million to $3.3 million in 2012 by a semi-official Iranian religious group.
Rushdie, who relocated to the United States in 2000, was instantly approached by a small group of individuals who held up his legs, apparently to bring more blood to his chest, after the assault.
While attending earlier events, the author has complained about ‘too much’ security.
‘To come here and discover a massive security operation surrounding me has honestly been a bit humiliating,’ he told reporters at the Prague Writers Festival.
‘I felt it was incredibly needless and sort of overdone, and it wasn’t planned at my request.’
‘I spent a long period before coming here expressing that I didn’t want it.’
‘So I was extremely shocked to get here and see a really very significant operation, since it felt like I had gone back in time many years.’
PEN America’s current CEO, Suzanne Nossel, issued a statement saying, ‘PEN America is reeling from shock and horror at word of a brutal, premeditated attack on our former President and stalwart ally, Salman Rushdie, who was reportedly stabbed multiple times while on stage speaking at the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York.’
‘On American soil, we can think of no analogous incidence of a public violent assault on a literary writer.
‘Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face.
For decades, Salman Rushdie has been persecuted for his writings, yet he has never flinched or wavered. He has devoted tireless energy to assisting others who are vulnerable and menaced.
‘While we do not know the origins or motives of this savage attack, all those around the world who have met words with violence or called for the same are culpable for legitimizing this an assault on a writer while he was engaged in his essential work of connecting to readers.
‘Our thoughts and passions now lie with our dauntless Salman, wishing him a full and speedy recovery.
‘We hope and believe fervently that his essential voice cannot and will not be silenced.’
Hitoshi Igarashi, who translated The Satanic Verses into Japanese for Rushdie, was stabbed to death on the campus where he taught literature.
Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator of the book, was knifed in his apartment in Milan.
The novel’s Norwegian publisher William Nygaard, was shot three times outside his home and left for dead in October 1993, but survived the attack.
In Turkey, the book’s translator, Aziz Nesin, was the target of an arson attack on a hotel that killed 37.
Rushdie previously wrote a 655-page fatwa memoir, which was nominated for the UK’s top non- fiction award, the Samuel Johnson prize.
During the fatwa he lived in permanent terror and at one point thought his ex-wife Clarissa Luard and their son Zafar, who was nine at the time, had been killed by assassins or kidnapped.
In 1998 Iran’s reformist president relaxed the fatwa and said it had no intention of tracking Rushdie down and killing him.
Technically it still stands but is unlikely to be enforced.
The Index on Censorship, an organization promoting free expression, said money was raised to boost the reward for his killing as recently as 2016, underscoring that the fatwa for his death still stands.
He has has two children from his four marriages – his other son is called Milan – but has been linked with many other women including Indian model Riya Sen.
Prince Charles also reportedly refused to support the author during his fatwa because he thought the book was offensive to Muslims.
In an article for Vanity Fair magazine, Martin Amis claimed that the Prince’s views caused a row at a dinner party after Rushdie was issued with the death sentence by Islamic clerics in 1989.
Amis claims that Charles told him that he would not offer support ‘if someone insults someone else’s deepest convictions’.
Amis remonstrated with him but all Charles did was ‘take it on board’, even though Rushdie is a British-Indian citizen.
Fellow author Stephen King also refused to let stores in America sell his books if they refused to carry The Satanic Verses.
Rushdie has spoken at the Chautauqua Institution before, which is based about 55 miles southwest of Buffalo in a rural corner of New York.
It is known for its summertime lecture series.
Rushdie has been married four times and had a string of high-profile romances that included Padma Lakshmi, Olivia Wide, and models decades younger than him.
He met his first wife, Clarissa Luard, at a pop concert in the UK in 1969, with the couple marrying in 1976 and having their son Zafar three years later.
Although they divorced in 1987, they remained close friends, and Rushdie reportedly stayed by her side when she died from breast cancer at age 50 in 1999.
By the time Luard passed, Rushdie had already been married twice. He tied the knot Pulitzer Prize finalist Marianne Wiggins, an American, in 1988 and then to editor Elizabeth West in 1997.
Rushdie was with Wiggins when he faced backlash over The Satanic Verses, with Rushdie saying that he heard criticisms that his ‘Jewish wife’ made him write it.
‘At its most unpleasant it was levelled at me from the Islamic side that the Jews made me do it,’ Rushdie said. ‘They said my [second] wife was Jewish. She wasn’t, she was American.’
Wiggins spent some time in hiding even after the couple divorced in 1993, and the following year, Rushdie married Elizabeth West, and the two had a son, Milan, in 1999.
Rushdie had previously said that he and West, an author and editor, began growing apart when he wanted to move to the US and she wanted to stay in the UK and have another child.
Following a miscarriage, the couple officially split in 2004. After the split from West, Rushdie immediately dove into the world of pop celebrities, marrying model turned Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi in 2004.
The two had met back in 1999 at a lavish New York City party thrown by media queen Tina Brown. Lakshmi alleges that the two had an affair during the party, and that Rushdie promised to be with her once his rocky marriage to West concludes.
Rushdie’s 2001 novel, Fury, was dedicated to Lakshmi. At the time of the wedding, Lakshmi was 28, while Rushdie was 51.
While Rushdie’s previous marriages lasted more than a decade, his union with Lakshmi only lasted three years, with the novelist bemoaning her in his memoir as a ‘bad investment’ who overly narcissistic and ambitious.
Lakshmi hit back at Rushdie in her own memoirs, calling him ‘sexually needy’ and insensitive to her endometriosis.