Author Salman Rushdie Was Stabbed On Stage & He's Had A $3M Bounty On His Life For Decades
Iran's fatwa has been active since 1989.
Author Salman Rushdie was brutally attacked just before delivering a lecture in New York on Friday, when a man rushed the stage in front of hundreds in the audience.
Rushdie, 75, was about to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in New York City when the attack happened. A man ran up on stage and hit him with 10-15 blows, according to an Associated Press reporter in the crowd.
Rushdie suffered "an apparent stab wound to the neck" and was rushed to hospital via helicopter, New York State Police said in a statement.
New York's governor said he was still alive on Friday afternoon.
Police say the suspect also hit the interviewer who was with Rushdie, and that that person suffered a minor head injury.
A state trooper assigned to the event arrested the suspect at the scene.
Authorities did not immediately share any details about the possible motive.
“This guy ran on to platform and started pounding on Mr. Rushdie,” Rabbi Charles Savenor, who was in the crowd, told the AP. “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 Indian-born author has been an outspoken voice for freedom over the years.
He's also faced countless death threats because of Iran, whose leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his death in 1989. The decree was over Rushdie's 1988 book The Satantic Verses.
Rushdie spent several years in hiding at the height of the danger, although there is still a $3 million bounty on his life for the fatwa, BBC reports.
Iran's government has distanced itself from the fatwa, but it remains active.
Many authors, including the likes of Stephen King, and Neil Gaiman, shared their shock and sadness at the news on Friday afternoon.
PEN America, the human rights and literature NGO that Rushdie once ran, mourned the attack in a statement.
"PEN America is reeling from shock and horror at word of a brutal premeditated attack on our former President and stalwart ally, Salman Rushdie," the organization's CEO, Suzanne Nossel, said in a statement.
