Agent: Rushdie is off the ventilator, talking and resuming normal activities day following attack

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MAYVILLE (N.Y.) — Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses”, was able to speak Saturday after being stabbed while he was preparing to deliver a lecture in Upstate New York.

Rushdie was still in hospital with severe injuries. However, fellow author Aatish Taseer posted that Rushdie was “off-the-ventilator and talking (and laughing)” while Andrew Wylie confirmed the information but did not provide further details.

The man who attacked him at Chautauqua Institution on Friday, a non-profit education and retreat centre, earlier in the day pleaded not guilty in an attempt to murder and assault case in what the prosecutor described as a “preplanned crime”.

An attorney representing Hadi Matar made the plea for him during an arraignment held in Western New York. He was wearing a black-and-white jumpsuit with a white mask on his face and had his hands held in cuffs.

A judge ordered him held without bail after District Attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar, 24, took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID.

” This was an unprovoked attack preplanned against Mr. Rushdie,” Schmidt stated.

Public defender Nathaniel Barone said that it took too long for authorities to bring Matar before a judge, while leaving him “hooked-up to a seat at the state barracks .”

“He is entitled to presume innocence under the Constitution,” Barone said.

Rushdie suffered from a severed liver and nerves damage in one arm and one eye. Wylie stated Friday evening. The injured eye was most likely to go.

The attack was met by shock and outrage around the globe, as well as tributes and praises for the award-winning author. He has been threatened with death for his book “The Satanic Verses .”

” for over 30years.

Activists and officials from government and the media praised Rushdie for his courage and support of freedom speech, despite all risks. Ian McEwan, a longtime friend and writer of Rushdie called him “an inspiring defender persecuted journalists and writers across the globe,” while Kal Penn (actor-author) cited him “for an entire generation” of artists. He’s also shown “incredible warmth towards many of us from the South Asian diaspora.”

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President Joe Biden stated Saturday that he was shocked and “saddened” by the attack.

“Salman rushdie — his insights into human nature, his unparalleled sense of story and refusal to be silenced or intimidated — is a symbol for fundamental, universal ideals,” it said. “Truth. Courage. Resilience. Ability to communicate ideas freely without fear. These basic building blocks are essential to any open and free society .”

Rushdie is a native Indian who now lives in the U.S. and Britain. He’s known for his surrealist and humorous prose style. His Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel, “Midnight’s Children,” which was harshly criticised Indira Gandhi, then India’s prime minister at that time, began his criticism.

“The Satanic Verses” was threatened with death after being published in 1988,. Many Muslims considered it blasphemy to publish a dream sequence that is based on the life and times of Prophet Muhammad. Rushdie’s book was already banned in India and Pakistan, and then burned elsewhere in Iran before Grand Ayallah Ruhollah Khomeini, an Iranian grand ayatollah, issued an edict calling for Rushdie to be executed in 1989..

Khomeini also died in the same year. However, the fatwa is still valid. Khamenei is Iran’s supreme leader. He has not issued any fatwas of his own revocation, but Iran has in recent years not focused its attention on him.

Investigators worked to establish whether the suspect was acting alone, having been born 10 years after “The Satanic Verses” first appeared.
District Attorney Schmidt alluded to the fatwa as a potential motive in arguing against bail.

” Even if the court sets a million-dollar bail, there is a chance that bail could still be met,” Schmidt stated.

” His resources are irrelevant to me. “We understand that yesterday’s agenda was approved and sanctioned, and that it was passed by large groups and organizations far beyond Chautauqua County,” said the prosecutor.

Barone stated that Matar had been openly communicating with him, and that he would continue to work over the next few weeks in order to find out more about Matar, such as whether or not he suffers from addiction or psychological issues.

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Matar hails from Fairview in New Jersey. Rosaria Calabrese, manager of the State of Fitness Boxing Club, a small, tightly knit gym in nearby North Bergen, said Matar joined April 11 and participated in about 27 group sessions for beginners looking to improve their fitness before emailing her several days ago to say he wanted to cancel his membership because “he wouldn’t be coming back for a while.”

Gym proprietor Desmond Boyle stated that he did not see anything violent about Matar. He described him as quiet and polite, but who looked “tremendously unhappy” and refused to be welcomed by Boyle and other gym owners.

” This look was his every day. Boyle stated that it looked as if it were the most difficult day in his life.

Matar was the child of parents from Yaroun, southern Lebanon. Ali Tehfe told The Associated Press that Matar was brought up in America by his father.

Flags belonging to the Iran-backed Shia militant organization Hezbollah can be seen across the village. Also, portraits of Hassan Nasrallah and Khamenei as well as Khomeini (slain Iranian Gen. Qassem SOleimani) are also visible.

Journalists who visited Yaroun Saturday were asked for their departure. Hezbollah spokespersons did not respond when asked.

The attack was not motivated by Iran’s state-run media or its theocratic government. Interviews with Iranians in Tehran by the Associated Press revealed that some Iranians praised the attack against an author, believing it to be a taint of the Islamic faith. Others were concerned about the possibility of further isolation.

On Friday, on AP reporter witnessed the attacker stab or punch Rushdie about 10 or 15 times.

Event Moderator Henry Reese suffered a facial injury. He was released from hospital after being treated. Rushdie and he had intended to talk about the United States’ role as refuge for artists and writers in exile.

A trooper from the state and a deputy sheriff were sent to Rushdie’s lecture. Police said that the trooper was responsible for the arrest. But, long-time Chautauqua Institution visitors questioned the reason for not tighter security after Rushdie’s threats and the bounty of $3 million.

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The center stated that it is increasing security by requiring photo IDs for gate passes. This was previously possible anonymously. Bags of any kind will be prohibited from patrons who enter the amphitheater, where Rushdie was killed.

The changes, along with an increased presence of armed police officers on the bucolic grounds, came as something of a shock to Chautauquans who have long relished the laid-back atmosphere for which the nearly 150-year-old vacation colony is known.

News regarding the stabbing has prompted renewed interest in “The Satanic Verses”, which have topped bestseller lists since the fatwa in 1989. was published. The novel was ranked No. 13 on Amazon.com.

The death threats and bounty Rushdie received over his book led him to hide under the protection of the British government, which provided an armed guard that was available 24 hours a day. Rushdie made a few more public appearances after nine years in seclusion.

In 2012, he wrote a memoir on the fatwa entitled “Joseph Anton”, the pseudonym that he used during his hiding.

He stated that terror was actually the art and fear of fear during a New York speech that year: “The only thing you can do to defeat it is to decide not be afraid .”

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