Salman Rushdie - live: Iran condemned for ‘sickening’ statement blaming author for attack

Rishi Sunak, who is a contender to become the UK’s next prime minister, has sent his best wishes to Salman Rushdie, who he described as a “champion of free speech”.

“He’s in our thoughts tonight,” Mr Sunak said.

Mr Sunak, the UK’s former chancellor, is in a head-to-head race with the foreign secretary Lizz Truss, to become leader of the governing Conservative Party and therefore the prime minister.

Shekar Gupta, founder of The Print, says he is praying for Mr Rushie and criticised India for becoming the first country to ban the author’s book.

“While we hope and pray for Salman Rushdie, we must never forget that India was the first to ban the book. It was a Congress govt with around 415 seats in Lok Sabha…

So who planted the seeds of destruction of our secular polity...”

Piers Morgan has condemned the “horrific” attack on Salman Rushdie.

The presenter said Rushie had been stabbed for exercising his “right to free speech”.

According to his agent, Mr Rushue could lose an eye after he was stabbed on stage in New York.

He remains in hospital.

New York State Police have named a 24-year-old man as the suspect in the stabbing of Salman Rushdie at a literary event in western New York state on Friday.

Hadi Matar, of New Jersey, was taken into custody on Friday morning after allegedly storming the stage and stabbing the author at least once in the neck and abdomen at the Chautauqua Institution, New York State Trooper James O’Callaghan told a press conference on Friday afternoon.

Several members of the staff rushed the suspect and took him to the ground before a state trooper and Chappaqua County Sheriff’s deputy took him into custody, Mr O’Callaghan said.

Former Labour deputy leader and MP Tom Watson has been reflecting on the attack on Mr Rushdie, asking what society can do to show “solidarity” with the author.

“We can subscribe to his words,” he says. “We can share his words in our writing.”

Mr Watson is a former UK secretary of state for culture, who represented West Bromwich until stepping down and leaving politics in 2019.

A famous quote by Mr Rushdie is being shared on Twitter after he was attacked in New York.

“From the beginning, men used God to justify the unjustifiable,” it says.

The quote is from his book, The Satanic Verses, a novel inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

He received death threats after the book was published in 1988 and the government of Iran ordered his killing.

The man arrested over the stabbing of Mr Rushdie was carrying a fake driving licence using the name of a Hizbollah leader allied to killed Iranian general Qassim Soleimani, according to a report.

Fox News and other US news outlets said the suspected attacker, who has been named as Hadi Matar was using the fake name Hassan Mughnaiyah.

Mughniyah is the family name of Imad Mughniyah, the second-in-command of Lebanese Shia militant movement Hizbollah who was killed by the CIA in 2008 in Syria.

One man living in Tehran, lran’s capital, said he was “happy” that the author was attacked.

“I don’t know Salman Rushdie, but I am happy to hear that he was attacked since he insulted Islam,” Reza Amiri, a 27-year-old deliveryman, said.

“This is the fate for anybody who insults sanctities.”

Others, however, worried aloud that Iran could become even more cut off from the world as tensions remain high over its tattered nuclear deal.

“I feel those who did it are trying to isolate Iran,” said Mahshid Barati, a 39-year-old geography teacher.

“This will negatively affect relations with many — even Russia and China.”

On 14 February, 1989, Irananian religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on “all brave Muslims” to kill Salman Rushdie and those who helped translate and sell the book to the masses.

Mr Rushdie went into hiding for nearly a decade, living under the protection of Scotland Yard and changing locations frequently.

In addition to numerous death threats against the author himself, those who helped create and market the work were also targeted.

In 1991, the novel’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death, and two years later the book’s Norwegian publisher was injured in a shooting.

Josh Marcus has more.