… but denies links with knifeman in first public comments on stabbing
Iran has said only Salman Rushdie and his own supporters are to blame for the famed author being brutally stabbed at a public appearance in New York state, according to an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson.
Nasser Kanaani denied Iran had any responsibility for the attack on Friday, in which Rushdie, 75, was stabbed 12 times in front of a horrified audience.
‘We, in the incident of the attack on Salman Rushdie in the US, do not consider that anyone deserves blame and accusations except him and his supporters,’ Kanaani told reporters at a press briefing on Monday. ‘Nobody has right to accuse Iran in this regard.’
‘Salman Rushdie exposed himself to popular outrage by insulting Islamic sanctities and crossing the red lines of 1.5 billion Muslims,’ Kanaani said.
‘During the attack on Salman Rushdie, we do not consider anyone other than himself and his supporters worthy of reproach, reproach and condemnation…No one has the right to accuse Iran in this regard.’
Freedom of speech does not justify Rushdie’s insults upon religion in his writing, Kanaani said, adding that Iran has no other information about Rushdie’s assailant except what has appeared in media.
Rushdie suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, his agent said. He is likely to lose the injured eye but is expected to survive the attack.
His assailant, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack through his lawyer.
Iranian women are seen holding banners which read “Holly Koran” and “Kill Salman Rushdie” during a demonstration against British writer Salman Rushdie in Tehran on Feb 17, 1989 when the book was published
The award-winning author for more than 30 years has faced death threats for ‘The Satanic Verses.’ Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding his death. An Iranian foundation had put up a bounty of over $3 million for the author.
However, nearly ten years after issuing it, the Iranian government annoucned in 1998 it would no longer back the fatwa, and Rushdie has lived relatively openly in recent years.
The denial of Iranian state involvement follows hot on the heels of an editorial in Iran‘s state media warning that Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo are next in line, following the stabbing Rushdie.
The Kayhan newspaper, whose editor is personally chosen by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared in a front page story published on Sunday that after Rushdie ‘it is now the turn of Trump and Pompeo’.
The editorial stated, according to The Daily Telegraph: ‘God has taken his revenge on Rushdie. The attack on him shows it is not a difficult job to take similar revenge on Trump and Pompeo and from now on they will feel more in danger for their lives.’
Rushdie, a 75-year-old British-American novelist, was speaking on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York when 24-year-old Hadi Matar rushed onto the platform and stabbed Rushdie up to ten times.
Matar, born in the US to Lebanese parents, was quickly detained and charged with attempted murder. His mother told DailyMail.com he became withdrawn after visiting Lebanon in 2018, but she had no idea he was radicalized, and she now disowned him.