The announcement followed news that the lauded author had been weaned off a ventilator on Saturday and was able to speak. Literary agent Andrew Wylie warned that although Rushdie’s condition was “going in the right direction”, his recovery would be long. Rushdie, 75, suffered liver damage and severed nerves in an arm and eye that he was likely to lose, Walley had previously said. “Although his life-changing injuries are serious, his usual aggressive and defiant sense of humor remains intact,” Rushdie’s son, Zafar Rushdie, said in a statement Sunday, which noted that the author remains in critical condition. condition. The family’s statement also expressed gratitude for “members of the public who bravely stood up to defend him”, as well as the police, doctors and “the outpouring of love and support”. Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty Saturday to charges of attempted murder and assault in what prosecutors called a “targeted, unprovoked, premeditated attack” on the Chautauqua Foundation of Western New York, a nonprofit training and refuge center. The attack was met with global shock and outrage, along with praise for the man who, for more than three decades – including nine years in hiding under British government protection – faced death threats and a $3 million bounty on his head. “The Satanic Verses”. “It’s an attack on his body, his life and every value he stood for,” Henry Reese, 73, told The Associated Press. The co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum was on the scene with Rushdie and suffered a fractured forehead, bruises and other minor injuries. They had planned to discuss the need for writers’ safety and freedom of expression. Writers, activists, and government officials have cited Rushdie’s bravery and longstanding defense of free speech in the face of intimidation. Writer and long-time friend Ian McEwan called Rushdie “an inspiring defender of persecuted writers and journalists”, and actor-writer Kal Penn called him a role model, “especially to many of us in the South Asian diaspora”. “Salman Rushdie – with his insight into humanity, with his unparalleled sense of history, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced – represents quintessential, universal ideals,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement on Saturday . “Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear.” Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim family and lived in Britain and the US, is known for his surreal and satirical prose, beginning with his highly criticized 1981 Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children then- Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi. Infused with magical realism, 1988’s The Satanic Verses drew outrage from some Muslims who saw elements of the novel as blasphemous. Rushdie was believed to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad by naming a character Mahound, a medieval corruption of “Muhammad”. The character was a prophet in a city called Jahilia, which in Arabic refers to the time before Islam came to the Arabian Peninsula. Another series includes prostitutes who share names with some of Muhammad’s nine wives. The novel also implies that Muhammad, not Allah, may have been the true author of the Koran. The book had already been banned and burned in India, Pakistan and elsewhere when Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989. Khomeini died that same year, but the fatwa remains in effect — although Iran, in recent years, had not focused on Rushdie. Iran’s state-run Iran Daily praised the attack as an “implementation of divine decree” on Sunday. Another hard-line newspaper, Kayhan, called it “divine revenge” that will partly appease Muslim anger. Investigators were trying to determine whether the suspect, who was born nearly a decade after the novel was published, acted alone. A prosecutor cited the permanent fatwa as a possible motive in the anti-bail dispute. “His resources don’t matter to me. We understand that the agenda that was carried out yesterday is something that was approved and has been approved by larger groups and organizations far beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of Chautauqua County,” said District Attorney Jason Schmidt. Schmidt said Matar received an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arrived a day early with a fake ID. The judge ordered Matar held without bail. Public defender Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities took too long to bring Matar before a judge, leaving him “stuck on a bench in the state police barracks,” and stressed that Matar had the right to the presumption of innocence. Barone said after the hearing that Matar has been communicating openly with him and that he will try to find out if his client has psychological or addiction problems. Matar was born in the United States to parents who immigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon, the village’s mayor, Ali Tehfe, told the AP. Flags of the Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah, along with portraits of Hezbollah and Iranian leaders, were visible across Yaroun before journalists who visited on Saturday were asked to leave. Hezbollah spokesmen did not respond to requests for comment. Lebanon’s top Shiite mufti, Sheikh Ahmad Kabalan, condemned Rushdie in a speech on Sunday without directly endorsing the attack, saying the author was “the cheapest and worst personality who deals with history and heritage by fabricating lies and hypocrisy.” . In Tehran, some Iranians interviewed by the AP praised the attack on a writer they believe tarnished the Islamic faith, while others worried it would further isolate their country. A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy were assigned to Rushdy’s lecture, and police said the trooper made the arrest. But afterward, some longtime visitors to the bucolic holiday colony questioned why there wasn’t tighter security given the history of threats against Rushdie. On Friday, an AP reporter saw the attacker stab or punch Rushdie about 10 or 15 times. Reese, the moderator, told CNN he initially thought the attack was a prank. One of Rushdie’s ex-wives, author and TV presenter Padma Lakshmi, tweeted on Sunday that she was “relieved” by Rushdie’s prognosis. “Anxious and speechless, he can finally breathe his last,” she wrote. “Now I hope for a speedy cure.”
Italie reported from New York. Associated Press reporters Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran. Kareem Chehayeb and Bassem Mroue in Beirut. Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Jill Lawless in London and Julie Walker in New York contributed to this report.
