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Salman Rushdie was stabbed
Photo: JOEL SAGET/ AFP
The US government has condemned the serious knife attack on writer Salman Rushdie.
"This act of violence is appalling," National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan said, according to a White House statement.
Everyone in the administration of
US President Joe Biden
and Vice President Kamala Harris prayed for the 75-year-old's speedy recovery.
Sullivan also thanked the citizens and responders who "helped Rushdie so quickly after the attack."
Rushdie was attacked by a 24-year-old on an open stage at a reading in Chautauqua, New York, and was seriously injured with stab wounds in the neck and stomach.
The horror is great worldwide.
"Hate and barbarism have cowardly struck"
This is also the case with
UN Secretary-General António Guterres
.
"In no case is violence in response to words spoken or written by others in the exercise of their freedom of thought and expression," a spokesman said.
Guterres wishes Rushdie a speedy recovery.
more on the subject
Assassination of Writer Salman Rushdie: Caught Up by an Ancient CurseBy Marc Pitzke, New York
French President
Emmanuel Macron
also condemned the attack.
“Hate and barbarism have struck cowardly.” Rushdie has embodied freedom and the “fight against obscurantism” for 33 years, Macron explained.
»His fight is our fight.«
Minister of State for Culture
Claudia Roth
(Greens) described the attack as an attack on the freedom of literature and freedom of thought.
Federal Minister of Justice
Marco Buschmann
(FDP) was shocked and wished
Rushdie
a speedy recovery.
The Greens co-chairman
Omid Nouripour
wrote of the worst "fruit of a hatred that has been fomented and funded by the Iranian regime for decades."
"Harry Potter" author
Joanne K. Rowling
also expressed her dismay, writing "appalling news" after the attack.
Bestselling author
Stephen King
tweeted that he hopes Rushdie is okay.
Writer
TC Boyle
called Rushdie an old and dear friend as well as a brilliant and lovely person.
"I wish him a speedy and complete recovery and send the fanatics of any color to the furthest corners of hell."
Indian author and political activist
Arundhati Roy
told the British newspaper Guardian: "I am shocked and saddened beyond measure.
Nothing can justify this attack.«
Nigella Lawson
, British author and famous TV chef, is said to be Rushdie's longtime friend.
She tweeted: "Such shocking news that Salman Rushdie has been stabbed.
This is awful.
I'm upset."
Speaking to The Guardian, Japanese-born English writer
Kazuo Ishiguro
said, "He's been incredibly brave over the years." - and risked his life in the process.
Born in 1947 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, Rushdie was sentenced to death more than 30 years ago by fatwa: the then Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini published the religious legal document based on his work »The Satanic Verses« from 1988, which killing of the author prompted.
Some Muslims felt their religious sensibilities were offended by Rushdie's book.
Media in Iran celebrate attackers
The
knife attack was welcomed in the
Iranian media .
The pro-government newspaper Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief will be appointed by Iran's secular and spiritual leader Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday: "A thousand bravos (...) for the courageous and dutiful person who attacked the renegade and evil Salman Rushdie in New York Has".
It went on to say: »The hand of the man who wrung the neck of the enemy of God must be kissed.« The newspaper »Khorasan« carried the headline: »Satan on the way to hell«.
wit/dpa/Reuters
