Author of the Harry Potter series of novels, Joanne Rowling has been threatened with death after she condemned an attack on writer Salman Rushdie. This was reported by the Daily Mail newspaper on August 13.
The writer posted a message on her Twitter page in support of attack victim Salman Rushdie where she said she “feels very bad” and wished the writer well.
In response, she received death threats from Meer Asif Aziz, who describes himself as “a student, a social activist, a political activist and a research activist”. According to the paper, Aziz lives in Pakistan, supports Islamist extremism and is sympathetic to Iran.
As Rowling later noted, she has already sought protection from law enforcement authorities. She has also asked the Twitter administration to block Aziz’s account.
Salman Rushdie was attacked on the stage of Chatokua Institute before the start of his lecture on August 12. The writer was stabbed 15 times and stabbed in the neck during the attack, after which he was admitted to the hospital, where he was put on a ventilator.
New York State Police spokesman Eugene Staniszewski told a briefing that Rushdie was in surgery and had suffered at least two stab wounds – to the neck and stomach.
The attacker turned out to be 24-year-old Hadi Mater, who was found to be in possession of a false driving licence in the name of a Hezbollah terrorist organisation commander, issued in New York. According to the Daily Mail, the man had expressed support for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on his social media pages.
Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, written in 1988, drew a sharp negative response in the Muslim world – it was deemed anti-Islamic and banned in a number of countries. In his fatwa of 14 February 1989, Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini publicly cursed the writer and sentenced him to death. In Iran, a multimillion-dollar reward was announced for enforcing Khomeini’s fatwa. Rushdie was forced into hiding for a long time.