With the thirty-first anniversary of the fatwa issued against him by the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini, due to the publication of his book "The Satanic Verses," the British author Salman Rushdie, who is of Indian descent, confirms that he no longer wants to live in hiding and is not sorry.
On February 14, 1989, Khomeini ordered the writer's blood to be spilt because he believed his book "The Satanic Verses" offended Islam by including what is seen as infidelity. Tehran continued to issue this fatwa year after year.
During a trip to Paris, Rushdie told AFP, "I don't want to live incognito. Under the alias Joseph Antoun, he resided in a number of covert locations over the course of around 13 years, changing his I am confined and gagged; I am unable to speak. With my youngster, I want to kick a ball around in the backyard. A mundane, uninteresting life: this is my improbable goal, "In his 2012 autobiography, "Joseph Anton," he writes.
A month after September 11, 2001, and three years after Tehran declared the "end" of the danger against him, Rushdie stopped using the alias.
However, when he was interviewed by Agence France-Presse outside the French publishing firm in Paris, armed and unmarked police officers were waiting. Other components were dispersed over the adjoining courtyard.
Rushdie reacted firmly when asked if he regretted authoring the book, "I do not regret anything," despite the uproar the book caused. Rushdie still stands by the ideas he expressed in it.
Salman Rushdie, a British author of Indian descent, was stabbed today, Friday, as he was getting ready to give a lecture in a New York City auditorium.
According to the Associated Press, Rushdie was being lectured on stage when a guy burst into the Chautauqua Foundation auditorium and started hitting and stabbing him.
Salman Rushdie, a novelist, was stabbed in the neck, carried by helicopter to a nearby hospital, and "his condition is unknown," according to the New York Police.
She explained that she had detained a suspect and claimed that a suspect ran towards the stage and assaulted Rushdie and one of the event hosts.