MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rushdie recovering slowly; repercussions jump worldwide

Hadi Matar pleaded not guilty to attempted murder during his arraignment (Pic Twitter)

Author Salman Rushdie's son Zafar Sunday in a statement Sunday said in a statement Sunday that his father was still in critical condition after Friday's stabbing.

The Indian-born writer, who had a US$ 3 million bounty on his lead from Iranian religious groups outraged by his novel The Satanic Verses, was receiving “extensive ongoing medical treatment” after being taken off ventilator support.

“We are extremely relieved that yesterday he was taken off the ventilator and additional oxygen and he was able to say a few words,” Zafar said. “Though his life-changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty and defiant sense of humor remains intact,” he went on. “We are so grateful to all the audience members who bravely leapt to his defense and administered first aid along with the police and doctors who have cared for him and for the outpouring of love and support from around the world.”

Meanwhile, J.K. Rowling, known for the Harry Potter series, has been threatened for supporting Rushdie publicly.

After she posted on social media Friday night “Horrifying news. Feeling very sick right now. Let him be ok,” an activist activist activist by the name of Meer Asif Aziz replied: “Don't worry you are next.” Rowling has also been targeted by trans activists for her beliefs on gender.

Aziz also dubbed Hadi Matar, the 24-year-old man arrested for attacking Rushdie. as a “revolutionary Shia fighter.” Matar pleaded not guilty Saturday to charges of attempted murder.

Rushdie, 75, was stabbed up to 15 times at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state, where he was about to give a lecture on free speech. He suffered three stab wounds to the right side of his neck and four to the stomach among other wounds.

US President Joseph Biden Saturday joined world readers in commenting on the knife attack on Rushdie, saying he was “shocked and saddened” to learn of the stabbing. “Salman Rushdie -- with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced -- stands for essential, universal ideals. Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear,” Biden said in his statement.

In London, Conservative Party leadership candidate Rishi Sunak Sunday called for a tightening of sanctions against Iran. In his view, the “brutal stabbing” of Rushdie should serve as “a wake-up call for the West” that should prompt Britain to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an influential branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, a terrorist organization. The IRGC is already deemed as such by the US and several other countries.

Sunak, the former UK chancellor of the Exchequer, noted that Tehran’s response to the incident further supported the case for blacklisting the Islamic organization. He also said that all attempts to salvage the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), might fail. “We urgently need a new, strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions, and if we can’t get results then we have to start asking whether the JCPOA is at a dead end,” he stressed.