Controversial author Salman Rushdie was attacked Friday as he was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw a man enter the stage and start to punch and stab the author, knocking him to the floor, before being pinned by bystanders and quickly detained. Police said Rushdie was stabbed multiple times, including once in the neck, according to the New York Times. The person interviewing him suffered a minor head injury.
Pictures posted on social media by CBS 58 Executive Producer Sara Scheely Johnson show the author receiving help from bystanders. Rita Landman, an endocrinologist in the audience, told the New York Times that he was lying in a pool of blood, but continued to have a pulse.
Other pictures showed Rushdie being taken away on a stretcher, covered in blood and hooked up to an IV. He was taken to a hospital in a helicopter, according to police.
Pictures circulating show the Salman Rushdie being wheeled away on a stretcher after he was stabbed in New York, contrary to some reports he walked off stage, and the perpetrator being arrested. pic.twitter.com/eMy4t5RvGt
— Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) August 12, 2022
Another image circulating on social media seemed to show blood spattered on a chair and divider on the stage.
Salman Rushdie stabbed during appearance in New York https://t.co/6EqbECInM7 via @nypost blood on the screen pic.twitter.com/NsZ5kj4ZJm
— Leslie Mack (@lesliemack) August 12, 2022
Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, said in an email that the author is in surgery, according to National news correspondent Joyce Karam.
Rushdie was the center of international controversy in 1988, when he published The Satanic Verses, a book that many Muslims believed contained blasphemy. The author was flooded with death threats from Islamic radicals, especially when Iran’s ayatollah put out a fatwa on Rushdie, calling on all Muslims to execute him. The bounty on his head reached $6 million, with new funds being contributed as recently as 2016, according to the Index on Censorship. Despite the many threats on Rushdie’s life, it was revealed that there were no security checks at the event where he was speaking, nor were there any security cameras.
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The United Kingdom citizen had to go in hiding and be put under 24/7 armed guard by the British government as it uncovered several plots on his life. Riots broke out worldwide, with 12 people dying during clashes over the book in Rushdie’s native India. Nearly 20,000 Muslims gathered in London to burn an effigy of the author during the same year.
The Norwegian publisher of the book, William Nygaard, was shot three times outside his Oslo home in 1993.
