Salman Rushdie condition: Author critical, J.K. Rowling receives death threat

Police are investigating a threat against the Harry Potter author, amid a new update on the condition of stabbed writer Salman Rushdie.

Iranian women in 1989 seen holding banners which read "Holly Koran" and "Kill Salman Rushdie". Picture: AFP

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has received an online death threat after expressing her support for stabbed controversial writer Salman Rushdie.

Scottish police said they were investigating an apparent “online threat” made to the popular British author.

The threat was made after the 57-year-old tweeted her support for The Satanic Verses writer after he was stabbed in New York.

“We have received a report of an online threat being made and officers are carrying out inquiries,” Police Scotland spokeswoman said on Sunday local time.

Ms Rowling tweeted on Friday that she was “feeling very sick right now” as news broke of the attack on Mr Rushdie.

British writer J.K Rowling has received an online death threat in the wake of the Salman Rushdie attempted murder. Picture: AFP

In response, a user tweeted “Don’t worry you are next”.

Ms Rowling shared a screenshot of the reply asking Twitter moderators “any chance of some support?”

“These are your guidelines, right? ‘Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people’,” she added.

The tweet appeared to have been taken down on Sunday.

The author also tweeted that police had been informed.

The same Twitter account, believed to be based in Pakistan, also posted messages praising Mr Rushdie’s attacker.

RUSHDIE OFF VENTILATOR, CRITICAL

Mr Rushdie, 75, remains in a critical condition but has been taken off a ventilator and can talk, almost two days after being stabbed at a New York literary event.

Hadi Matar, 24, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges as the severely injured author appeared to show signs of improvement in hospital.

Matar was arraigned in court in New York State, with prosecutors outlining how Mr Rushdie had been stabbed approximately 10 times in what they described as a planned, premeditated assault.

After the on stage attack on Friday, Mr Rushdie had been helicoptered to hospital and underwent emergency surgery.

Salman Rushdie was on a ventilator and could lose an eye following a stabbing attack at a literary event in New York. Picture: AFP

His son Zafar Rushdie issued a statement: “Following the attack on Friday, my father remains in critical condition in hospital receiving extensive ongoing medical treatment. We are extremely relieved that yesterday he was taken off the ventilator and additional oxygen and he was able to say a few words.”

Author of Midnight’s Children, Mr Rushdie had lived in hiding for years after Iran’s first supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered his killing.

The stabbing drew applause from Islamist hardliners in Iran and Pakistan.

It comes as Mr Rushdie underwent surgery after being stabbed in the neck as he walked on stage at a writers conference at the Chautauqua Institution, which hosts arts programs in a tranquil lakeside community 110km south of Buffalo.

Mr Rushdie’s ex-wife Padma Lakshmi said she was “relieved” he was “pulling through after Friday’s nightmare”.

“Worried and wordless, can final exhale. Now hoping for swift healing,” she tweeted on Sunday.

Salman Rushdie is seen being loaded onto a medical evacuation helicopter near the Chautauqua Institution after being stabbed in the neck. Picture: AFP

New Jersey suspect Matar, rushed to the stage and stabbed the author who has had a bounty on his head of more than $4.6 million following the publication of his controversial novel in the 1980s.

A fatwa, an order for Muslims to kill him, was placed on him soon after.

The New York Post reports that initial investigations suggest Hadi is sympathetic to the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

RUSHDIE ATTACKER CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER

Matar, appeared in a New York court on Friday, local time, where he was charged with attempted murder.

He did not enter a not guilty plea.

“This was a targeted, pre-planned unprovoked attack on Mr. Rushdie,” Chautauqua County District lawyer Jason Schmidt told the court.

Mr Schmidt told the court that Mr Rushdie suffered three stab wounds to his neck; four to his stomach; a puncture wound to his right eye, three puncture wounds to his chest; and a laceration to his right thigh.

Salman Rushdie shortly after the stabbing attack. Picture: Mary Newsom/Twitter

Mr Schmidt said Matar bought a pass to the educational institute two days before Friday’s event and arrived at least a day before it.

“He didn’t bring a wallet. He had cash, prepaid Visa cards with him. He had false identification with him,” he said.

The motive behind the attack remains unclear but Matar’s social media footprint showed support of Iran and its revolutionary guard, law enforcement sources told The New York Post.

Recently, Mr Rushdie said he had begun to enjoy a normal life again, more than 30 years after the issuing of the 1989 Fatwa.

SALMAN RUSHDIE ATTACK ‘CELEBRATED’ IN IRAN

According to a number of media reports the savage attack on Mr Rushdie was celebrated in Iran.

Conservative newspaper Kayhan reportedly hailed Matar as “courageous and duty-conscious” after the attack.

Mr Rushdie was flown to a local hospital by helicopter Friday afternoon local time for treatment.

Video and images of the attack showed the British author laying on the floor as the crowd rushed the stage to help and the attacker was restrained.

Outside the home of Hadi Matar, the suspect in the stabbing or Rushdie, as police conduct a search. Picture: Getty

A state trooper assigned to the event immediately took Hadi into custody.

American University politics professor Carl LeVan tweeted shortly after the stabbing, saying: “Just witnessed the horrific assassination attempt on #SalmanRushdie’s life. He was stabbed multiple times before attacker was subdued by security.

“Some intrepid members of audience went on stage. What courage will be expected of us next to defend even the smallest freedoms?”

“There were gasps of horror and panic from the crowd,” the professor said. LeVan said witnessing the event had left him “shaken,” adding he considered Chautauqua a safe place of creative freedom.

Dr Martin Haskell, who was among those who rushed to help, said Mr Rushdie’s wounds were “serious but recoverable.”

An interviewer onstage, Ralph Henry Reese, 73, suffered a facial injury but has been released from the hospital, police said.

Iran’s late leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini first issued the fatwa for Mr Rushdie’s death in the late 1980s.

In 2012, an Iranian religious group raised the bounty for his death from $US2.8 million to $US3.3 million – or about $AU4.6 million.

Mr Rushdie, 75, was propelled into the spotlight with his second novel Midnight’s Children in 1981, which won international praise and Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India.

British author Salman Rushdie. Picture: AFP

After his 1988 book The Satanic Verses was considered by some Muslims as disrespectful of the Prophet Mohammed, he was granted police protection by the government in Britain following the murder or attempted murder of his translators and publishers.

Mr Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practising Muslims and today identifies as an atheist, was forced to go underground as a bounty was put on his head.

He spent nearly a decade in hiding, moving houses repeatedly and being unable to tell his children where he lived.

Pro-Iranian Hezbollah fundamentalists in 1989 burn an effigie of British writer Salman Rushdie. Picture: AFP

Mr Rushdie only began to emerge from his life on the run in the late 1990s after Iran in 1998 said it would not support his assassination.

Now living in New York, he is an advocate of freedom of speech, notably launching a strong defence of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after its staff were gunned down by Islamists in Paris in 2015.

The magazine had published drawings of Mohammed that drew furious reactions from Muslims worldwide.

Threats and boycotts continue against literary events that Rushdie attends, and his knighthood in 2007 sparked protests in Iran and Pakistan, where a government Minister said the honour justified suicide bombings.

Iranian women in 1989 seen holding banners which read "Holly Koran" and "Kill Salman Rushdie". Picture: AFP

The fatwa failed to stifle Mr Rushdie’s writing and inspired his memoir Joseph Anton, named after his alias while in hiding and written in the third person.

Midnight’s Children — which runs to more than 600 pages — has been adapted for the stage and silver screen, and his books have been translated into more than 40 languages.

Suzanne Nossel, head of the PEN America organisation, said the free speech advocacy group was “reeling from shock and horror.”

“Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning, Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face,” Nossel said in a statement.

“Our thoughts and passions now lie with our dauntless Salman, wishing him a full and speedy recovery. We hope and believe fervently that his essential voice cannot and will not be silenced.”

– with AFP

Originally published as Salman Rushdie condition: Author critical, J.K. Rowling receives death threat