Creator Salman Rushdie attacked on stage in New York | World News

British writer Salman Rushdie, whose writings made him the goal of Iranian loss of life threats that pressured him into hiding, was attacked on stage Friday in western New York state.

Video footage posted on social media confirmed individuals speeding to his support after he was attacked on the occasion in Chautauqua County, with police confirming a stabbing whereas declining to instantly establish the sufferer.

"A most horrible occasion simply occurred at #chautauquainstitution - Salman Rushdie was attacked on stage at #chq2022. The amphitheater is evacuated," one witness mentioned on social media.

Chautauqua County Sheriff's workplace mentioned "we will verify there was a stabbing," with out giving additional particulars.

Rushdie's situation was not instantly identified.

The writer, now 75, was propelled into the highlight along with his second novel "Midnight's Kids" in 1981, which received worldwide reward and Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India.

However his 1988 e book "The Satanic Verses" introduced consideration past his creativeness when it sparked a fatwa, or non secular decree, calling for his loss of life by Iranian revolutionary chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The novel was thought of by some Muslims as disrespectful of the Prophet Mohammed.

Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practising Muslims and himself is an atheist, was pressured to go underground as a bounty was placed on his head -- which stays immediately.

A decade in hiding

He was granted police safety by the federal government in Britain, the place he was in school and the place he made his house, following the homicide or tried homicide of his translators and publishers.

He spent almost a decade in hiding, transferring homes repeatedly and being unable to inform his kids the place he lived.

Rushdie solely started to emerge from his life on the run within the late Nineteen Nineties after Iran in 1998 mentioned it might not help his assassination.

Now dwelling in New York, he's an advocate of freedom of speech, notably launching a robust defence of French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo after its workers had been gunned down by Islamists in Paris in 2015.

The journal had revealed drawings of Mohammed that drew livid reactions from Muslims worldwide.

Threats and boycotts proceed towards literary occasions that Rushdie attends, and his knighthood in 2007 sparked protests in Iran and Pakistan, the place a authorities minister mentioned the honour justified suicide bombings.

The fatwa did not stifle Rushdie's writing, nevertheless, and impressed his memoir "Joseph Anton", named after his alias whereas in hiding and written within the third particular person.

"Midnight's Kids", which runs to greater than 600 pages, has been tailored for the stage and silver display screen, and his books have been translated into greater than 40 languages.