Indian-born British novelist, Salman Rushdie, was reportedly stabbed ten to fifteen times as he was being introduced on stage for the CHQ 2022 event at the Chautauqua Institute, in western New York.
"Author Salman Rushdie has been airlifted to hospital after being stabbed multiple times in the neck on stage as he prepared to give a speech in upstate New York.
The writer, 75, was attacked as he was being introduced to the stage for the CHQ 2022 event in Chautauqua, near Buffalo, on Friday morning.
Witnesses claim that he was stabbed ten to fifteen times, as a man approached him from behind before rushing the stage.
He was attending for a discussion of the United States as asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression.
Witnesses claimed that his attacker managed to walk off the stage after the stabbing, before being restrained, as people rushed to assist Rushdie.
Blood appeared to be spattered on the wall behind where Rushdie had been attacked, with some also seen on a chair.
The man responsible has been arrested by New York state troopers. The interviewer speaking to Rushdie also suffered a minor head injury.
During a press conference about red flag laws, Governor Kathy Hochul called the attack on Rushdie ‘heartbreaking’ before confirming that he is ‘alive’.
She added that he is ‘getting the care he needs at a local hospital’, and that a state police trooper ‘stood up and saved his life’ after the attack.
One witness told the New York Times that Rushdie had been stabbed 'multiple times' and had been lying in a pool of his own blood.
Rita Landman offered her assistance after the incident, adding that he appeared to be alive and did not receive CPR.
Ms. Landman said: 'People were saying, ‘He has a pulse, he has a pulse he has a pulse'.
Rushdie’s London-based son Zafar, 42, is aware of the incident and his father has been seen being transported by air ambulance after the attack.
Hundreds of people in the audience gasped at the sight of the attack and were then evacuated as his alleged attacker was taken into custody.
John Bulette, 85, who witnessed the attack said: 'There was a huge security lapse. That somebody could get that close without any intervention was frightening'.
A Chautauqua Institution spokesperson added: 'We are dealing with an emergency situation. I can share no further details at this time'.
Rabbi Charles Savenor claims that the entire attack lasted around 20 seconds.
He said: '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'.
The author was knighted in 2007 in Britain ‘for services to literature’ by his friend Tony Blair.
His last piece of writing was about an assassination attempt, serializing a novella called The Seventh Wave on Sub Stack, which appeared to focus on spies and assassinations.
Rushdie has previously received death threats for his writing, with his book the Satanic Verses which supposedly insulted the Prophet Mohammed and The Koran.
He wrote the Satanic Verses, which resulted in a culture war being sparked in 1988 in Britain – with protests taking place in the UK along with book burnings.
Pakistan banned the book, and he was issued a fatwa – a death sentence - by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1989.
Khomeini called for the death of Rushdie and his publishers, and also called for Muslims to point him out to those who could kill him if they could not themselves.
The fatwa, or ‘spiritual opinion’, followed a wave of book burnings in Britain and rioting across the Muslim world which lead to the deaths of 60 people and hundreds being injured.
Rushdie was put under round-the-clock security from 1989 to 2002, at the expense of the British taxpayer, when a $3 million bounty was put on his head.
He was forced to go into hiding for a decade with police protection, and previously reported that he received a ‘sort of Valentines card’ from Iran each year letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him.
In 2012, a semi-official Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
After the attack today Rushdie, who moved to the US in 2000, was quickly surrounded by a small group of people who held up his legs, presumably to send more blood to his chest.
The author previously complained about having 'too much' security while attending other events.
He told reporters a the Prague Writer's Festival: ‘To be here and to find a large security operation around me has actually felt a little embarrassing'.
'I thought it was really unnecessary and kind of excessive and was certainly not arranged on my request'.
‘I spent a great deal of time before I came here saying that I really didn’t want that'.
'So I was very surprised to arrive here and discover a really quite substantial operation, because it felt like being in a time warp, that I had gone back in time several years’.
Rushdie is a former president of PEN America, with their current CEO Suzanne Nossel issuing a statement which said: 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.
‘We can think of no comparable incident of a public violent attack on a literary writer on American soil'.
‘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'.
‘Salman Rushdie has been targeted for his words for decades but has never flinched nor faltered. 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 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.
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.
New York State Police said in a statement: ‘On August 12, 2022, at about 11 am, a male suspect ran up onto the stage and attacked Rushdie and an interviewer'.
‘Rushdie suffered an apparent stab wound to the neck and was transported by helicopter to an area hospital'.
'His condition is not yet known. The interviewer suffered a minor head injury'.
'A State Trooper assigned to the event immediately took the suspect into custody. The Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office assisted at the scene'". -Emma James and Adam Solomons, Daily Mail
It wasn't too long ago you could come to Erie County, NY, without anyone taking exception to someone denigrating the Muslim caliphate. But that's because they're weren't any Muslims until recently.
And, the irony of attending an event to discuss America being “an asylum for writers and other artists in exile and a home for freedom of creative expression” only to be stabbed a dozen times a bloodthirsty critic is not lost on anyone.
I'm sure Rushdie, now 75, assumed that he no longer had any reason to continue to live under the shadow casted by the fatwa after it was lifted by the Iranian regime in 1998. The States were undoubtedly a place where a dissident like Rushdie would've felt the safest. That is until U.S. cities like Buffalo began importing hordes of immigrants from the Middle East before descending into ethnic strife.