‘Appalling, reprehensible’: UN Secretary General, US National Security Advisor on attack on Salman Rushdie
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and US National Security Advisor James Sullivan expressed shock and grief at the attack on renowned writer Salman Rushdie, calling it “appalling” and “reprehensible”.
“Today, the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie. This act of violence is appalling,” Sullivan, the National Security Advisor to US President Joe Biden, said.
“All of us in the Biden-Harris Adminration are praying for his speedy recovery. We are thankful to good citizens and first responders for helping Mr. Rushdie so quickly after the attack and to law enforcement for its swift and effective work, which is ongoing,” he added in a statement.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated that he was “appalled” to learn about the attack, saying that in no case is violence a response to words spoken or written others in their exercise of the freedoms of opinion and expression.
“The Secretary-General was appalled to learn of the attack on renowned novel Salman Rushdie,” a statement issued on Friday his spokesperson said. “In no case is violence a response to words spoken or written others in their exercise of the freedoms of opinion and expression,” Guterres said, conveying his wishes for Rushdie’s early recovery.
Rushdie, who faced death threats for years after writing “The Satanic Verses”, was stabbed a 24-year-old New Jersey resident, identified as Hadi Matar, on Friday while he was being introduced at the event of the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York.
Rushdie was airlifted from a field adjacent to the venue to a hospital in northwestern Pennsylvania where the 75-year-old writer underwent surgery. Rushdie, who won the Booker Prize for his novel “Midnight’s Children”, was unable to speak.
“Rushdie will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed, and his liver was stabbed and damaged,” the writer’s agent Andrew Wylie told The New York Times.
