Iran's main ultra-conservative daily, Kayhan, congratulated on Saturday the man who stabbed the world-famous British writer Salman Rushdie, author of "Satanic Verses", the target for more than 30 years of a fatwa in the United States. 'Iran.
"Congratulations to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and the vicious Salman Rushdie", writes the newspaper, whose boss is appointed by the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"Let us kiss the hand of him who tore the neck of the enemy of God with a knife", continues the text.
Mr. Rushdie was assaulted in the neck and abdomen while standing on the stage of an amphitheater at a cultural center in Chautauqua, in upstate New York.
According to his agent, he was placed on life support and could lose an eye.
The Iranian power has not yet reacted
The Iranian authorities have so far not officially commented on the assassination attempt on the 75-year-old intellectual.
Toeing the official line, all of Iran's media have branded Mr. Rushdie an "apostate", except for the reformist Etemad.
The daily Iran, a state-run newspaper, estimated that "the neck of the devil" had been "struck by a razor".
“I will not shed tears for a writer who denounces with infinite hatred and contempt Muslims and Islam,” wrote in a tweet Mohammad Marandi, adviser to the team of negotiators on the nuclear file.
“Rushdie is an empire pawn posing as a postcolonial novelist,” he added.
"Isn't it strange that, as we approach a potential nuclear deal, the United States is claiming that an attack on Bolton (former White House national security adviser) was planned...and let it happen next, ”he wonders.
Salman Rushdie had set part of the Muslim world ablaze with the publication in September 1988 of the "Satanic Verses", leading the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini to issue a "fatwa" in 1989 calling for his assassination.
