Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen was deeply dismayed: “Hate and violence must have no place in our free society,” wrote the head of state on Twitter on Saturday afternoon. Van der Bellen wishes the “great person and author” and his family a lot of strength.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) condemned the “cowardly attack” on Rushdie on Twitter as an attack on freedom and our basic democratic values. Nehammer’s thoughts are with the author and his family during these difficult hours. The State Department tweeted: “Yesterday’s heinous attack on @SalmanRushdie proves once again brutally that we must not slow down our efforts to defend #freedomofexpression. Our thoughts are with him and his family and we wish him a speedy recovery.”
The knife attack on the writer Rushdie, who became world-famous for his novel “The Satanic Verses”, 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, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Saturday: “A thousand bravos (…) for the courageous and conscientious person who has opposed the apostate and evil Salman Rushdie attacked in New York”. It went on to say, “The hand of the man who wrung the throat of the enemy of God must be kissed.”
The headline in the hard-line newspaper Vatan Emrooz read: “Knife in the neck of Salman Rushdie”. The newspaper “Khorasan” carried the headline: “Satan on the way to hell”. News site Asr Iran published a quote from Khamenei saying that the “arrow” fired by former Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini will one day hit the target. No statement has yet been received from the leadership in Tehran.
Attacked on stage
A 24-year-old attacked and seriously injured Rushdie at a literary event in New York State on Friday. The author of the “Satanic Verses”, whose killing the spiritual leader of Iran, Khomeini, had called for in 1989 for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed, was flown to a clinic in a rescue helicopter and operated on. He was put on a ventilator, according to his agent, and could lose an eye. The attacker was overwhelmed by onlookers and arrested by a police officer who was present. The motive of the 24-year-old from Fairfield in the US state of New Jersey, which is close to New York, was initially unclear.
Video: ORF correspondent Inka Pieh reports on the latest information on the knife attack on novelist Salman Rushdie in New York.
The US government and UN Secretary-General António Guterres were shocked. The United States and the world had witnessed a “reprehensible attack,” said US President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, late Friday evening (local time). “This act of violence is appalling.”
The entire US government is praying for a speedy recovery for the 75-year-old. Sullivan also thanked the citizens and responders who “helped Rushdie so quickly after the attack.” “In no case is violence a response to words spoken or written by others in the exercise of their freedom of opinion and expression,” said Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Friday evening (local time). The UN Secretary-General wished Rushdie a speedy recovery.
“Attack on Freedom of Speech and Thought”
US Senator and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on Twitter that the act was an “attack on freedom of speech and freedom of thought. French President Emmanuel Macron wrote that Rushdie was met with “hatred and barbarism”. The outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “appalled. Harry Potter author Joanne K. Rowling and best-selling author Stephen King also expressed their dismay and wrote that they hoped Rushdie was safe. PEN America, the American authors’ association, spoke out Shocked by the attack on his former president, Rushdie has been attacked for his words for decades, but he has never wavered and never hesitated, Chairwoman Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.
German writer Günter Wallraff, who hid Rushdie in his home in Cologne-Ehrenfeld in 1993, said the news was “naturally a blow to me”. The Graz Authors’ Assembly (GAV) condemned the assassination attempt on Rushdie in the strongest possible terms. It was an attack on “the freedom and human rights of all of us, an attack on literature,” it said in a statement on Saturday. “The GAV therefore calls on people not to submit to the logic of religious fundamentalism and not to bow to violence.” Rushdie’s works could not be suppressed or erased and will be “all the more important despite and because of the terror”.
Source: Nachrichten
