The writer crossed “the red lines” of 1.5 billion Muslims, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran said
Iran denied being involved in the attack against Salman Rushdie on Monday. He claimed the novelist and his followers are responsible for the incident.
As he prepared to deliver a lecture before a full audience, the British-American Indian writer was attacked at a New York education center. A possible motive for the assault is his 1988 novel ‘The Satanic Verses’, which was condemned by some Muslims for its allegedly blasphemous references to Islam and its holy book, the Koran.
Speaking at a weekly press conference, the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said that Tehran “has no information about the person who had attacked Rushdie other than what was announced by the US media.” He added that his country “Be serious and categorically” denies any link to the attack and stressed that “no one has the right to accuse the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“Rushdie, his friends and supporters are all to blame.” Kanaani said, adding that anger over Rushdie’s works “This is not a problem that has been solved only by the Islamic Republic and Iran.”
“By crossing the red lines of more than one and a half billion Muslims and followers of all divine religions, he {Rushdie} exposed himself to the wrath of the people,” the spokesman explained.
Kanaani’s statement marks the first official reaction of Tehran to the shocking attack. It came the day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “Iran’s state institutions are responsible for inciting violence against Rushdie over the years, and state-affiliated media has recently glorified Rushdie’s attempt to endanger his life..”
“It is a shameful act.” the top US diplomat said.
Meanwhile, the writer, who was stabbed 12 times, remains in critical condition but has been taken off a ventilator and “Was able to speak a few sentences,” his son Zafar said on Sunday.
“Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty & defiant sense of humour remains intact,” Zafar Rushdie said in a statement.
In 1989, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. The writer ended up spending years hiding under round-the-clock protection from the police.
The fatwa is still viewed by many as active, despite the Iranian government’s public commitment in 1998 to “Rushdie’s assassination was not supported nor hindered.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards in 2005 declared that Rushdie’s death sentence was still valid. In 2012, an Iranian religious organization called the 15 Khordad Foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie’s killing by $500,000 to $3.3 million. In 2004, 40 Iranian media outlets were able to pool their resources to raise $600,000.
In 2019, Twitter suspended the account of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over a tweet that said the fatwa against Rushdie was “solid and irrevocable.”
Share this story via social media
[ad_2]
