An Iranian government official on Monday denied that Tehran was involved in the attack on author Salman Rushdie, but justified the stabbing in comments that were the Islamic Republic’s first public comments on the attack.
The comments by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani came more than two days after Rushdie’s New York attack. The writer has now had a fan removed and is “on the road to recovery”, according to his agent.
However, Iran has denied carrying out any other overseas operations against dissidents since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, despite Western prosecutors and governments blaming Tehran for these attacks. And while Iran has not targeted the writer in recent years, a decades-old fatwa has called for his death.
“Regarding the attack on Salman Rushdie in the United States, we found no one to blame, blame or even condemn, except for himself (Rushdi) and his supporters,” Kanaan said.
“In this regard, no one can blame the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added. “We believe the abuse and support he received was an insult to people of all faiths.”
Rushdie, 75, was stabbed while attending an event in western New York on Friday. His agent, Andrew Wylie, said he suffered liver damage and severed nerves in his arm and eye. Rushdie would likely lose his damaged eye.
Her attacker, Hadi Matar, 24, pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack through a lawyer.
Rushdie faced the death penalty for over 30 years satanic verses. Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, calling for his death. A semi-official Iranian foundation has awarded the author more than $3 million but has not yet commented on the attack.
The NYPD has not yet released a reason for the attack, although District Attorney Jason Schmidt cited the Rushdie Award when arguing against bail at a hearing on Saturday.
“Even if this court sets bail at $1 million, we run the risk of bail being granted,” Schmidt said.
Matar was born in the United States to parents who migrated to southern Lebanon from Yaroun, near the Israeli border, according to the village’s mayor. Flags of the Iranian-backed Shia militant group Hezbollah, along with portraits of Hezbollah and Iranian leaders, hang in the village. Israel has also bombed Hezbollah positions there in the past.
In Yaroun, village records show that Matar has Lebanese citizenship and is Shia, a local official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Matari’s father still lives there but has been isolated since the attack.
In his comments on Monday, Kanaani added that Iran “has no other information than what is reported by the US media.” He also hinted that Rushdie had attacked himself.
“Salman Rushdie escaped the wrath and ire of the public by insulting the sanctity of Islam and crossing the red line of 1.5 billion Muslims and also crossing the red line of followers of all divine religions,” Kanaan said.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, while not directly blaming Tehran for Rushdie’s attack, pointed the finger at Iran in a statement on Monday, praising the writer’s efforts to support free speech and religion.
“Iran’s state institutions have encouraged violence against Rushdie for generations, and state-affiliated media have recently cheered an attempt on his life,” Blinken said. “It’s disgusting.”
New York Governor Cathy Hochul condemned Rushdie’s attack at a conference on Sunday, saying “a man with a knife cannot silence a man with a pen”.
Khomeini, in the last year of his life in ruins from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war that destroyed the country’s economy, issued a fatwa about Rushdie in 1989. The Islamic decree came amid a violent upheaval in the Muslim world. A novel that was considered by some to contain blasphemous suggestions about the life of the Prophet Muhammad.
While the fatwa can be revised or revoked, Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini, never did. In February 2017, Khamenei said, “The decree is issued by Imam Khomeini”.
Since 1979, Iran has attacked dissidents abroad. Tensions with the West, particularly the United States, have increased since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
A drone strike ordered by Trump in 2020 killed a top general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, further fueling these tensions.
Last week, the United States indicted a Guard member in absentia for plotting to kill former Trump aide and Iran hawk John Bolton. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his assistant are under 24-hour security due to alleged threats from Iran.
Meanwhile, US prosecutors say Iran tried to kidnap an Iranian opposition activist and writer who lives in New York in 2021. In recent days, a man has been detained near his home with an automatic firearm.
Other denials by the Foreign Ministry included the transfer of weapons from Tehran to Yemen’s Houthi rebels amid the country’s long civil war. Independent experts, Western countries and UN experts have found weapons components in Iran.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
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