Johnson, Macron and Albanese react to Salman Rushdie’s assault: World leaders react to Salman Rushdie’s stabbing

“[For] 33 years, Salman Rushdie has embodied freedom and the combat in opposition to obscurantism. He has simply been the sufferer of a cowardly assault by the forces of hatred and barbarism. His combat is our combat; it’s common. Now greater than ever, we stand by his facet,” Macron stated.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese additionally condemned the assault, calling it “sickening and cowardly.”

“This mindless violence in opposition to a celebrated writer can also be an assault on world freedom of expression and deserves unequivocal condemnation. Might he have a full restoration,” Albanese added.

The 75-year-old novelist — the son of a profitable Muslim businessman in India — was educated in England, first at Rugby Faculty and later on the College of Cambridge the place he obtained an MA diploma in historical past.

He later spent a decade below British safety after his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses,” prompted the supreme chief of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to challenge a spiritual decree, or fatwa, calling for his dying.

The bounty in opposition to Rushdie has by no means been lifted, nevertheless in 1998 the Iranian authorities sought to distance itself from the fatwa by pledging to not search to hold it out.

However in February 2017, Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reaffirmed the non secular edict.

And in 2019, Khamenei tweeted that stated Khomeini’s fatwa in opposition to Rushdie was “stable and irrevocable,” prompting Twitter to put a restriction on his account.

Iranian-born German politician Bijan Djir-Sarai blamed the Iranian authorities for the assault, saying in a Friday tweet: “The Iranian mullahs’ regime can also be accountable for this cowardly assault. Anybody who desires regular relations with this regime ought to know this.”

The suspect within the assault has been recognized as Hadi Matar from Fairview, New Jersey. There has not but been any official response from Iran to the assault.

Nevertheless, a number of hardline Iranian newspapers poured reward on Matar on Saturday, together with the Kayhan newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Khamenei, Reuters reported.

“A thousand bravos … to the courageous and dutiful one that attacked the apostate and evil Salman Rushdie in New York,” it stated, in response to Reuters, including: “The hand of the person who tore the neck of God’s enemy have to be kissed.”

The information has rattled authors from throughout South Asia and the diaspora, together with Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who stated she was “shocked” by the information.

“I by no means thought it could occur. He has been residing within the West, and he has been protected since 1989,” stated Nasreen, who is thought for her writings on girls’s oppression, and who has had a few of her books banned in Bangladesh.

“If he’s attacked, anybody who’s important of Islam could be attacked. I’m fearful,” she stated.

Aatish Taseer, a British-American author and journalist who had his Abroad Citizen of India (OCI) card — a type of everlasting residency obtainable to folks of Indian origin — revoked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019, stated that he was “devastated” by the information.

“Devastated by the information about @SalmanRushdie. He was the primary author I ever met and his willpower to defend his freedom (and that of others) within the face of spiritual extremism has been a relentless inspiration. I do know he can be okay. He must be,” Taseer stated.

American writers and organizations have additionally been left reeling from the assault. Rushdie has been residing in america lately.

Press Freedom group PEN America stated in a Friday assertion that the group “is reeling from shock and horror” after Friday’s assault.

“We are able to consider no comparable incident of a public assault on a literary author on American soil,” stated CEO Suzanne Nossel.

“Salman Rushdie has been focused for his phrases for many years however has by no means flinched nor faltered,” Nossel stated. “He has devoted tireless power to aiding others who’re weak and menaced.”

Nossel additionally stated that hours earlier than the assault Rushdie had emailed her asking for assist in discovering protected refuge for “Ukrainian writers in want of protected refuge from the grave perils they face.”