The writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed this Friday during a literary event at the Chautauqua Institution, when he was on stage before giving a conference in New York.
A journalist from the news agency The Associated Press saw how a man burst onto the stage and beat and stabbed the writer, whose condition is not immediately known.
Rushdie's writings on Islam in the 1980s led to death threats in Iran, which banned his book
The Satanic Verses
, a reference to the Koran deemed "blasphemous".
A year later,
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a
fatwa
,
an edict calling for the writer to be killed.
Writer Salman Rushdie in Hamburg, Germany, on November 12, 2019. Tristar Media / Getty Images
Iran had offered a $3 million reward for anyone who assassinated Rushdie.
This is a developing story.
Please check back for updates.