French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo slams Rushdie stabbing

Magazine wryly speculates motive spurred by global warming; says ‘nothing justifies a fatwa, a death sentence’

By AFP13 August 2022, 8:39 pm   

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Illustrative: Employees checking the arrival of the then forthcoming edition of the weekly satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, on January 13, 2015, Paris, France. (AFP/Martin Bureau)

PARIS, France — French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose 12 staff members were gunned down in 2015 over cartoons about Prophet Mohammed considered blasphemous by many Muslims, said Saturday that nothing justified the stabbing of Salman Rushdie.

The British author, who spent years in hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his killing, was on a ventilator following a stabbing attack at a literary event in New York state Friday.

“Nothing justifies a fatwa, a death sentence,” Charlie Hebdo said.

“At the time we are writing these lines we do not know the motives” of the attacker, it said, speculating ironically whether it was spurred by global warming, the decline in purchasing power, or a ban on watering potted plants during the current heatwave.

The magazine’s managing editor, known as Riss and a survivor of the 2015 attack, said Rushdie’s assailant was probably a practicing Muslim and slammed the “little and mediocre spiritual heads who are intellectually nil and culturally ignorant.”

Rushdie’s 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” transformed his life when Iran’s first supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious decree, ordering his killing.

Author Salman Rushdie speaks during the Mississippi Book Festival, in Jackson, Mississippi, on August 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

The novel was considered by some Muslims as disrespectful of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.

Hezbollah Official Says Group Does Not

Know Anything about Attack on

Rushdie

by Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

AUGUST 13, 2022 

Author Salman Rushdie is transported to a helicopter after he was stabbed on stage before his scheduled speech at the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York, U.S., August 12, 2022, in this screengrab taken from a social media video.

 Photo: TWITTER @HoratioGates3 /via REUTERS

An official from Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said on Saturday the group had no additional information on the stabbing attack against novelist Salman Rushdie.

“We don’t know anything about this subject so we will not comment,” the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hezbollah is backed by Iran, whose previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1988 pronounced a fatwa, or religious edict, calling upon Muslims to kill Rushdie for blasphemy.

The suspected attacker was identified by police as 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey. Matar is originally Lebanese and his family hails from the south Lebanon town of Yaroun, Yaroun mayor Ali Tehfe told Reuters.

Tehfe said the parents emigrated to the United States and Matar was born and raised there.

When asked if Matar or his parents were affiliated with or supported Hezbollah, Tehfe said he had “no information at all” on the political views of the parents or Matar as they lived abroad.