After days of silence, Iran on Monday denied "categorically" any link to the aggressor who stabbed British writer Salman Rushdie, author of the novel, on Friday in the United States "the satanic verses"33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa sentencing him to death.
"We categorically deny" any relationship between the aggressor and Iran, said Naser Kanani, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. "No one has the right to accuse the Islamic Republic".
This is the first official reaction from Tehran to the attack against the 75-year-old author, which occurred in the amphitheater of a cultural center in Chautauqua, in the state of New York.
"In this attack, only Rushdie and his supporters deserve to be blamed and even condemned."Kanani stressed during his weekly press conference in Tehran.
"By insulting the holy affairs of Islam and crossing the red lines of more than 1.5 billion Muslims and all followers of divine religions, Salman Rushdie exposed himself to the wrath and rage of the people."he added.
Hospitalized with serious injuries after the attack, the British-American writer is improving, according to those close to him. He no longer needs artificial respiration and has begun to recover, his literary agent Andrew Wylie said in a statement sent to the media.
"anger of millions"
Salman Rushdie, born in 1974 in India into a family of non-practicing Muslim intellectuals, set fire to part of the Muslim world with the publication in 1988 of "the satanic verses"a novel considered blasphemous by the most rigorous, understanding that it insulted the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed.
In 1989, the founder of the Islamic Republic issued a fatwa calling for the killing of Rushdie, who lived for years under police protection.
The fatwa against the writer was never withdrawn and in these years, several of his translators have suffered attacks, including the fatal stabbing of his Japanese translator in 1991.
"The anger displayed at the time (…) was not limited to Iran and the Islamic Republic. Millions of people in Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim countries reacted with anger" to the work of Salman Rushdie, Iran’s foreign affairs spokesman recalled on Monday.
Kanani considered "completely contradictory" "condemn the action of the aggressor and absolve the action of the one who insults holy and Islamic things" at the same time.
The alleged assailant, Hadi Matar, is a 24-year-old Lebanese American who has been charged with "attempted murder and assault". killing has been declared "not guilty" of the charges.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that Iranian state media was "gloating" for the attack on the intellectual.
"it’s despicable"he stated in a statement.
In Iran, the ultra-conservative daily Kayhan praised Matar, referring to him as "that brave and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and vicious Salman Rushdie".
Javan, another ultra-conservative newspaper, wrote on Sunday that it is a plot by the United States with the "probable" intention of "spread islamophobia in the world".
In Iran this is a sensitive issue. Several people interviewed by AFP in recent days in Tehran refused to comment on the attack on Salman Rushdie, while others celebrated the attack.