'No more than living dead', says Iranian foundation rewarding Salman Rushdie's attacker
Foundation to donate 1,000 sq metres to Rushdie's attacker
Foundation to donate 1,000 sq metres to Rushdie's attacker
Foundation to donate 1,000 sq metres to Rushdie's attacker
Foundation to donate 1,000 sq metres to Rushdie's attacker
An Iranian Foundation praised renowned author Salman Rushdie's attacker and promised to donate 1,000 sq. metres for the attacker or his legal representative.
Rushdie, 75, lost an eye and the use of one hand following the assault on the stage of a literary event held near Lake Erie in western New York state in August, Reuters reported. Rushdie was attacked by Hadi Matar, a Shi'ite Muslim American from New Jersey and he pleaded 'not guilty' to the charges. Matar was charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault.
"We sincerely thank the brave action of the young American who made Muslims happy by blinding one of Rushdie's eyes and disabling one of his hands," Mohammad Esmail Zarei, secretary of the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini's Fatwas was quoted saying by Reuters.
"Rushdie is now no more than living dead and, to honour this brave action, about 1,000 square metres of agricultural land will be donated to the person or any of his legal representatives,” Zarei was quoted saying by Reuters.
Matar rushed to the stage and stabbed Rushdie while he was set to deliver a lecture on artistic freedom at the Chautauqua Institution. The attack came 33 years after Shi'ite Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa or religious edict calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie following the release of his novel "The Satanic Verses," the publication reported.
Some Muslims saw passages about the Prophet Muhammad in the novel as blasphemous.
Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family, spent nine years in hiding under British police protection. President Mohammad Khatami-led Iranian government distanced itself from the fatwa in late 1990. But, the multimillion-dollar bounty hanging over him has kept growing and the fatwa has never been lifted.
Khomeini's successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for saying the fatwa against Rushdie was "irrevocable,” Reuters reported.