In Iran, backers of Salman Rushdie attack speak out
- ‘May God curse Salman Rushdie. Imam Khomeini sentenced him to death in a fatwa. He had been in hiding for years,’ said one Iranian man
- The author, who spent years in hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his killing, was on a ventilator in hospital after an attack at a US literary event on Friday
In Tehran’s book market, the stabbing of British novelist Salman Rushdie was on everyone’s lips on Saturday, but only those who approved of the attack dared to speak publicly.
The author, who spent years in hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his killing, was on a ventilator in hospital after the attack on Friday at a literary event in upstate New York.
More than 30 years after the publication of The Satanic Verses, the book and its author remain deeply inflammatory in Iran, and when asked by Agence France-Presse on Saturday nobody dared to openly condemn the stabbing, which has sparked outrage in the West.
The issue is all the more taboo because of the fatwa, or religious edict, issued by the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, just months before his death in 1989.
The fatwa called for Rushdie to be put to death for renouncing the Muslim faith of his ancestors with the “blasphemous” novel.
“I was very happy to hear the news. Whoever it was (that carried out the attack), I would like to kiss his hand,” said Mehrab Bigdeli, a man in his 50s who said he was studying to become a Muslim cleric.
“May God curse Salman Rushdie. Imam Khomeini sentenced him to death in a fatwa. He had been in hiding for years,” Bigdeli added.