Tag Archives: freedom of expression

The news of Salman Rushdie’s stabbing at an event in upstate New York is profoundly shocking.

My first thoughts were with those police officers and a doctor in the audience who put themselves in harm’s way to help the author and no doubt give him the chance of survival. At the time of writing he is still in surgery and I know that everyone reading this will hope that he pulls through and our thoughts will be very much with his loved ones.

We don’t know the motivations for this particular attack, but we are well aware that Salman Rushdie had to spend a decade in hiding after the Iranian Government issued a fatwa against him in 1988 after they decided that his book, The Satanic Verses, was blasphemous.

Rushdie has had to live with this threat for decades for doing nothing other than challenging orthodoxy. For using his considerable creative talent to make us think.

Tonight, Layla Moran described how the threat to Rushdie encouraged her to read his books:

I remember as a child being told about the fatwah and as a result reading his books. Beautiful pieces of literature, especially Midnight’s Children. I learned art and thought can be dangerous in a good way – I hope he pulls through https://t.co/3NaZqb6hLf

— Layla Moran 🔶 (@LaylaMoran) August 12, 2022

She said: