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Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini (view source)
Revision as of 22:10, August 16, 2022
, 22:10, August 16, 2022no edit summary
The Ayatollah held American hostages until [[President Carter]], who had admitted the Shah into the United States for medical treatment, left the presidency on Jan. 20, 1981.
The Ayatollah held American hostages until [[President Carter]], who had admitted the Shah into the United States for medical treatment, left the presidency on Jan. 20, 1981.
In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini ordered a fatwah (Islamic decree) to murder [[Salman Rushdie]], after publishing his book criticizing Islam 'Satanic Verses'.
In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini ordered a fatwa<ref name=nyt-15aug2022>Jennifer Schuessler, [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/arts/salman-rushdie-free-speech.html Stabbing of Salman Rushdie Renews Free Speech Debates], ''The New York Times'', August 15, 2022.<blockquote>
Two years ago Salman Rushdie joined prominent cultural figures signing an open letter decrying an increasingly "intolerant climate" and warning that the "free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted." It was a declaration of principles Mr. Rushdie had embodied since 1989, when a fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, calling for his murder, made him a reluctant symbol of free speech….
In the West, the defense of Mr. Rushdie was hardly universally robust. Former president Jimmy Carter, writing in The New York Times in 1989, denounced the fatwa but charged Rushdie with "vilifying" the Prophet Muhammad and "defaming" the Quran.
"While Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms are important," he wrote, "we have tended to promote him and his book with little acknowledgment that it is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence the added embarrassment of the Ayatollah's irresponsibility."…
Some who weighed in said the stakes are simply too high — and too personal. After the attack, Roya Hakakian, an Iranian American writer who in 2019 was warned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she had been targeted by Iran, took to Twitter on Saturday to assail what she said was a lack of swift condemnation from U.S. government officials….
In an interview on Sunday, Ms. Hakakian, who came to the United States as a refugee in 1984, said that the heart of the Rushdie case is "being able to say that we, as writers, as novelists, as thinkers, can absolutely take on any issue we want in our works — and that includes Islam."
But "nobody is saying that," she said. Instead, "people are paying lip service to free speech."
In his recent autobiographical novel "Homeland Elegies," the American writer Ayad Akhtar reflects on the complex meanings of the “Satanic Verses” controversy for Muslim readers and writers, including himself.
In an email on Sunday, Mr. Akhtar, who is PEN America’s current president, said the attack on Mr. Rushdie is "a reminder that ‘harms’ of speech and the freedom of speech do not, cannot, hold equal claims on us."
"While we may rightly acknowledge that speech can harm," he said, "it’s in the terrible culmination of Salman's dilemma that we see the paramount value, the absolute centrality of freedom of thought and the freedom to express that thought.”
For many, defending Mr. Rushdie and "The Satanic Verses" against his would-be assassins may be easy, Mr. Akhtar said. But the defense also "has to apply where we have less unanimity, where we are more implicated."
"That’s what it means," he said, "for it to be a principle."</blockquote></ref> (Islamic decree) to murder [[Salman Rushdie]], after publishing his book criticizing Islam 'Satanic Verses'.
On Aug 12, 2022, an Arab-Muslim Hadi Matar, with sympathies toward Iranian government was arrested after stabbing Salman Rushdie.<ref>Joe Marino and Evan Simko-Bednarski, [https://nypost.com/2022/08/12/nj-man-matar-hadi-with-sympathies-toward-iran-arrested-in-stabbing-of-salman-rushdie/amp/ NJ man, Hadi Matar, with sympathies toward Iranian government ID’d as suspect in Salman Rushdie stabbing], ''NYPost'', August 12, 2022.<blockquote>
On Aug 12, 2022, an Arab-Muslim Hadi Matar, with sympathies toward Iranian government was arrested after stabbing Salman Rushdie.<ref>Joe Marino and Evan Simko-Bednarski, [https://nypost.com/2022/08/12/nj-man-matar-hadi-with-sympathies-toward-iran-arrested-in-stabbing-of-salman-rushdie/amp/ NJ man, Hadi Matar, with sympathies toward Iranian government ID’d as suspect in Salman Rushdie stabbing], ''NYPost'', August 12, 2022.<blockquote>
Hadi Matar, 24, was arrested after he stormed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York and allegedly stabbed the author in the neck.</blockquote></ref> Described by eyewitnesses as viciously stabbing, repeatedly.<ref>[https://www.deccanherald.com/international/salman-rushdie-in-surgery-after-being-stabbed-onstage-suspect-arrested-1135716.html Salman Rushdie in surgery after being stabbed onstage; suspect arrested], AFP, Aug 13, 2022.<blockquote>Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor attending the event, told AFP he saw the suspect run onto the stage where Rushdie was seated and "stabbed him repeatedly and viciously."</blockquote></ref>
Hadi Matar, 24, was arrested after he stormed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York and allegedly stabbed the author in the neck.</blockquote></ref> Described by eyewitnesses as viciously stabbing, repeatedly.<ref>[https://www.deccanherald.com/international/salman-rushdie-in-surgery-after-being-stabbed-onstage-suspect-arrested-1135716.html Salman Rushdie in surgery after being stabbed onstage; suspect arrested], AFP, Aug 13, 2022.<blockquote>Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor attending the event, told AFP he saw the suspect run onto the stage where Rushdie was seated and "stabbed him repeatedly and viciously."</blockquote></ref>