On August 12th, Salman Rushdie was violently attacked in western New York, where he was set to deliver a presentation on the United States as a safe haven for exiled writers. NUFDI quickly prepared to serve as a resource for the American and international press on this attack and the implications for America’s Iran policy.
We reintroduced the context of Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa on Mr. Rushdie calling on Muslims to kill the author for his book The Satanic Verses. NUFDI also collected and translated responses to the attack from the Islamic Republic’s state media, in which they celebrate and praise the attack, saying that “the devil’s eye has been blinded,” and “Salman Rushdie got divine vengeance. Trump and Pompeo are next.”
Our team’s work resulted in NUFDI being quoted by AFP on the attack: “Whether today’s assassination attempt was ordered directly by Tehran or not, it is almost certainly the result of 30 years of the regime’s incitement to violence against this celebrated author.”
AFP is one of the world’s largest and most influential news agencies. As such, NUFDI’s research and analysis was quoted in hundreds of news outlets around the world.
NUFDI has continued to highlight the threats, assassination attempts, and attacks that U.S. citizens are facing from the Islamic Republic on U.S. soil in the past few months. This includes a recent Op-Ed in Politico Europe by our Policy Director Cameron Khansarinia and Kaveh Shahrooz.
For more reading on this developing issue:
The Republic of Fatwas | Newsweek, NUFDI Advisory Council Member Saeed Ghasseminjad & FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz
Salman Rushdie and the Continuing Threat from Iran | Wall Street Journal, Reza Pahlavi
With your help, NUFDI will continue to be a leading voice on this issue in Washington, DC and in the international media.