After the knife attack on Salman Rushdie, Federal President Steinmeier wrote a letter to the writer. In it he speaks of an "attack on the freedom of speech". He appreciates Rushdie's courage in not remaining silent despite Khomeini's call for murder.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wished writer Salman Rushdie, who was injured in a knife attack, a speedy recovery. In a letter to Rushdie, Steinmeier was "deeply horrified" by the "vile knife attack," as the Federal President's Office announced. "This was an attack on the freedom of speech and the freely constituted society. A perfidious attack on a defenseless person."
Rushdie was attacked with a knife at a literary event in upstate New York on Friday. The British-Indian writer was seriously injured and required emergency surgery, but is now on the mend. The alleged perpetrator was arrested.
"You always knew you were in danger," Steinmeier wrote to Rushdie. "And yet you made a conscious decision not to give in to Ayatollah Khomeini's inhuman call for murder and to oppose authoritarian rule with the freedom of the individual."
Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for the writer to be killed because of alleged insults to the Prophet Mohammed in Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses". For years, Rushdie lived under tight police protection in ever-changing secret locations. For some time now, however, he has been leading a relatively normal life again and making public appearances.
"Even if the physical wounds no longer pose a threat to life, the injury to the soul remains," Steinmeier wrote to Rushdie, referring to his condition. "It is my sincere hope, therefore, that despite this attempt on your life and despite the serious injuries, you will continue to have the strength to write and speak publicly for us as your readers." The truth of literature and the truth of freedom would "always be stronger than the lies and the whip with which religious fanatics and authoritarian regimes try to gain control," Steinmeier said with conviction.
