Ayatollah Ali Khameini, who succeeded Iran’s supreme leader, Rujullah Khomeini, said that in 1989 his predecessor, Salman Rushdie, sentenced to death for accepting the “Satanic Verses” as blasphemy. “an arrow [o una bala según otras traducciones] there is a target for it. Shot. He will reach his goal one day sooner or later,” he said.
On Friday, 33 years after this fatwa and this statement, the horror of its validity and impact took shape in Chautauqua, a quiet rural corner of western New York state. Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old young man, He repeatedly stabbed and seriously injured Rushdie while he was about to give a lecture at a cultural festival.
Although the investigation is still open and officially New York officials have not determined the motive that prompted Matar, who was killed on Saturday. charged with attempted second-degree murderThe first news about his actions and which could face up to 25 years in prison in New York have now turned all eyes to Tehran.
Hezbollah and Iran
Matar, who was born in California and moved to New Jersey, is the son of an immigrant from Yaroun, according to NBC News. A city in southern Lebanon, near the Israeli border, which was bombed by the Israeli army in the past. The Iranian-backed Shiite militia group attacks the positions of Hezbollah.
As radical Islamism expert Romain Callet explained on Twitter, Matar was using a fake driver’s license in New Jersey, named after one of Hezbollah’s security chiefs and most prominent commanders, who was killed in an attack by Shiite militias in Syria in 2008. This Saturday, he refused to comment on Matar to Reuters and claimed not to know him, attributed to Israel.
In your activities on social networks where your accounts are no longer accessible, Matar has also shown sympathy for Shiite extremism and the cause of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.According to a police source cited by NBC this Saturday, he also confirms the information given by a source other than the ‘New York Post’ tabloid the day before.
Celebration
The leaders of Iran’s theocratic government this Saturday remained publicly silent about the attack on Rushdie, but both in media close to the regime in the country and on websites in Lebanon and other countries such as Iraq or Kuwait, support for Hezbollah and international organizations rallying in the streets opinions Matar’s action was celebrated and in many cases associated with fatwa.
“Congratulations to this brave and dutiful man who attacked the apostate Salman Rushdie and attacked the immoral Salman Rushdie in New York,” he wrote and congratulated Matar ‘Kayhan, Iran’s main ultra-conservative newspaper, whose director was appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei. he did. Presse also collected statements made by professor of theology Hosein Radai to the ultra-conservative Fars agency. “One who leaves the religion of Islam (…) is called an apostate. Like Salman Rushdie, he is someone who has not simply denied Islam. [sino] who tried to humiliate him. According to the law, such an apostate deserves death,” he said.
A pro-Hezbollah website seen by ‘The Guardian’ assured this Saturday that “Whoever is hostile to us will soon be caught by the fire of our swords”. The British newspaper also quoted a senior Kuwaiti journalist, Rushdie said, “We should not expect believers to respect their right to life while disrespecting the essence of their lives and insulting their sacred symbols.” The news also included the headline that guided the news of the Iraqi organization Sabreen, which supports the pro-Iranian militia: “Peace be with you. Revenge of Allah.”
Must
Matar failed to achieve the final purpose of the fatwa, but after a fast and furious attack in which five people had to distract him before he was arrested, Rushdie, 75, was left in serious condition. According to the final episode delivered Friday by the author’s manager, Andrew Wylie, after hours of surgery at the Erie (Pennsylvania) hospital, where he was transported by helicopter, Rushdie was still on the ventilator and could not speak.. “The news is not good. Salman will probably lose an eye, the nerves in his arm are severed and his liver is stabbed and damaged,” Wylie said.