Iran says Rushdie and supporters to blame for attack

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI (Reuters) -Nobody has the proper to stage accusations in opposition to Iran over Friday’s assault on Salman Rushdie, for which he’s guilty after denigrating the world’s Muslims, the international ministry in Tehran mentioned on Monday.

The novelist, who has lived underneath a loss of life menace for many years since enraging clerical authorities in Iran by way of his writing, is recovering after being repeatedly stabbed at a public look in New York state.

In Iran’s first official response to Friday’s assault, ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani mentioned freedom of speech didn’t justify Rushdie’s insults in opposition to faith. His 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” is seen by some Muslims as containing blasphemous passages.

“(Concerning) the assault on Salman Rushdie, we don’t take into account anybody aside from himself and his supporters worthy of …reproach and condemnation,” Kanaani instructed a information briefing. “Nobody has the proper to accuse Iran on this regard.”

Writers and politicians all over the world have condemned the assault. His agent instructed Reuters that Rushdie had sustained extreme accidents, together with nerve harm in his arm and wounds to his liver, and was prone to lose a watch.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson mentioned it was “ludicrous” to counsel Rushdie was chargeable for the assault.

“This was not simply an assault on him, it was an assault on the proper to free speech and expression,” the spokesman instructed reporters.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned on Sunday that Iranian state establishments had incited violence in opposition to Rushdie for generations, and state-affiliated media had gloated concerning the try on his life.

The Indian-born author has had a bounty on his head since “The Satanic Verses” was printed in 1988. The next yr, Iran’s then Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling on Muslims to kill the novelist and anybody concerned within the guide’s publication.

In 1991, the novel’s Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed to loss of life. A former pupil of Igarashi’s on Monday renewed requires his homicide to be solved, the Ibaraki Shimbun newspaper reported.

A police spokesperson instructed Reuters that an investigation was nonetheless energetic and that the statute of limitations on the crime, which expired in 2006, could possibly be lifted.

The novel’s Italian translator was wounded in 1991 and two years later its Norwegian writer was shot and critically wounded.

In 1998, Iran’s pro-reform authorities of President Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the fatwa, saying the menace in opposition to Rushdie – who had lived in hiding for 9 years – was over.

However in 2019, Twitter suspended Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s account over a tweet that mentioned the fatwa in opposition to was “irrevocable”.

HARDLINE REACTIONS

Rushdie, 75, has lived comparatively overtly in recent times.

He was about to ship a lecture on the Chautauqua Establishment in western New York on the significance of the USA as a haven for focused artists when police say a 24-year-old man rushed the stage and stabbed him.

Ministry spokesperson Kanaani mentioned Rushdie had “uncovered himself to in style outrage by insulting Islamic sanctities and crossing the crimson traces of 1.5 billion Muslims.”

Kanaani mentioned Iran had no different details about the novelist’s suspected assailant besides what had appeared in media.

The suspect, Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, pleaded not responsible to tried homicide and assault at a courtroom look on Saturday, his court-appointed lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, instructed Reuters.

An preliminary regulation enforcement evaluation of Matar’s social media accounts confirmed he was sympathetic to Shi’ite extremism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in accordance with NBC New York. Washington accuses the IRGC of finishing up a worldwide extremist marketing campaign.

IRGC-affiliated Jam-e Jam and different hardline Iranian state media shops celebrated the assault.

Matar is the son of a person from Yaroun in southern Lebanon, in accordance with Ali Tehfe, the city’s mayor. Matar’s mother and father emigrated to the USA, the place he was born and raised, the mayor mentioned, including he had no info on their political opinions.

The Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah holds vital sway in Yaroun, the place posters of Khomeini and IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2020, adorned partitions on the weekend.

A Hezbollah official instructed Reuters on Saturday that the group had no extra info on Friday’s assault.

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Extra reporting by Maya Gebeily in Beirut and Elizabeth Piper in London; Writing by Michael Georgy; Modifying by John Stonestreet)