Iran had nothing to do with the attack on Salman Rushdie, and the author and his supporters are themselves to blame for the attack against the author, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani has said.
“Regarding the attack against Salman Rushdie in the United States, we don’t consider anyone deserving reproach, blame or even condemnation, except for [Rushdie] himself and his supporters. In this regard, no one can blame the Islamic Republic of Iran. We believe that the insults made and the support he received was an insult against followers of all religions,” Kanaani told reporters on Monday.
The spokesman said Tehran does not have any information on Rushdie’s assailant besides what has been reported by US media.
Kanaani also weighed in on the decades old debate between Rushdie’s supporters, who hold the author up as a beacon of free speech, and detractors, who have accused him of chasing notoriety by insulting Islam. “We believe that hate speech and sacrilege are condemned religiously, morally and legally,” the spokesman said.
“Salman Rushdie exposed himself to popular anger and fury through insulting the sacrality of Islam and crossing the red lines of over 1.5 billion Muslims and also red lines of followers of all divine religions,” he added.
Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and abdomen on Friday in Chautauqua, New York after an assailant rushed the stage at an event where he planned to speak. The 75-year-old underwent emergency surgery and was placed on a ventilator, and suffered nerve damage in one of his arms and one of his eyes. His agent said the writer is likely to lose the eye, but that he has been taken off the ventilator and put “on the road to recovery.”
The suspect, Hadi Matar, is a 24-year-old resident of Fairview, New Jersey. He is US-born, while his parents emigrated to the United States from Lebanon. Police told NBC News that a review of Matar’s social media revealed sympathies for “Shia extremism.”
In a statement earlier in the day Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused “Iranian state institutions” of “incit[ing] violence against Rushdie for generations,” and blasted “state-affiliated media” over their “despicable” “gloat[ing] about the attempt on his life.”
Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie in the late 1980s over his bestseller "The Satanic Verses," accusing him of blaspheming against the Prophet Muhammad in the novel. Iran never revoked its fatwa against Rushdie, but has not acted on it in any official capacity either.
Rushdie successfully coasted off the fame he earned through the fatwa against him to sell his novels, do book tours, and appear on television, winning literary prizes and receiving a British knighthood in the process. He has become a household name for free speech activists.