Tehran — Iran on Monday denied any link with the attacker of British writer Salman Rushdie however blamed the writer himself for “insulting” Islam in the novel “The Satanic Verses.”
“We categorically deny” any link with the assault and “no one has the right to accuse the Islamic Republic of Iran,” mentioned international ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani in Tehran’s first official response to Friday’s stabbing.
“In this attack, we do not consider anyone other than Salman Rushdie and his supporters worthy of blame and even condemnation,” he mentioned at his weekly press convention in Tehran. “By insulting the sacred matters of Islam and crossing the red lines of more than 1.5 billion Muslims and all followers of the divine religions, Salman Rushdie has exposed himself to the anger and rage of the people.”
Rushdie, 75, was left on a ventilator with a number of stab wounds after he was attacked at a literary occasion Friday in upstate New York.
Literary agent Andrew Wylie mentioned Sunday that Rushdie was “on the road to recovery.” He mentioned the writer had been faraway from the ventilator on Saturday and was capable of speak and joke, however he cautioned that whereas he was “headed in the right direction,” his restoration could be an extended course of, and he might lose a watch.
“Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty & defiant sense of humour remains intact,” Rushdie’s son Zafar Rushdie mentioned in a statement on Sunday, stressing that his father remained in important situation.
The prize-winning writer had spent years underneath police safety after Iranian leaders in 1989 referred to as for his killing over his portrayal of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed in the novel.
The suspected assailant, 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey, was wrestled to the floor by workers and viewers members earlier than being taken into police custody.
He was later arraigned in courtroom and pleaded not responsible to tried homicide expenses.
In 1989, Iran’s then-supreme chief, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a non secular decree, or fatwa, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie for what he deemed the blasphemous nature of “The Satanic Verses.”
Khomeini died quickly after, and Iranian leaders since have put little give attention to the writer, however the fatwa was by no means formally lifted. Several translators of the guide have been attacked.
The assault on Rushdie got here at a delicate second in Iran’s talks with main powers on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal deserted by the United States in 2018, in return for the re-lifting of crippling U.S. sanctions.
The international ministry spokesman Kanani on Monday pressured the place that Rushdie, not Iran, was responsible for the assault in opposition to him.
Commenting on the novel, Kanani mentioned “the anger at that time at this inappropriate action was not limited to Iran and the Islamic Republic. Millions of people in Arab, Islamic and non-Islamic countries reacted with anger. Condemning the action of the attacker on the one hand and absolving the action of the one who insults sacred and Islamic matters on the other is completely contradictory.”
More than 30 years after its publication, the guide and its writer stay deeply inflammatory in Iran.
Iranians at Tehran’s guide market, when requested by AFP on Saturday to touch upon the assault, didn’t brazenly condemn the stabbing, which has sparked outrage in the West.
The ultra-conservative Kayhan newspaper, whose director is appointed by present supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, greeted the assault.
“Bravo to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York,” it mentioned.
With the exception of reformist publication Etemad, Iranian media adopted an identical line, additionally describing Rushdie as an “apostate.”
One state-owned paper in Iran mentioned that the “neck of the devil” had been “cut by a razor.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned Iranian state media for having “gloated” about the assault, calling it “despicable.”
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