American media sources have reported that novelist Salman Rushdie was stabbed before giving a speech in the city of Chautauqua, located on the border between the U.S. and Canada in New York state. According to witnesses, a man stormed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and attacked Salman Rushdie, who was subjected to a fatwa calling for his death by Iran in 1989 due to his novel "The Satanic Verses." Rushdie fell to the ground, while the man who attacked him was detained.
An Associated Press reporter noted that a man rushed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and began punching or stabbing Rushdie while he was speaking. The writer fell to the ground as onlookers intervened. Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses" has been banned in Iran since 1988, as some Muslims considered it blasphemous. The following year, the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death.
