Salman Rushdie preparing to be airlifted to a hospital after the attack.

NEW YORK, Broadcasting News Corporation : Author Salman Rushdie, whose work has earned him death threats, was stabbed in the neck at a literary event in upstate New York Friday, when an assailant stormed the stage soon after his introduction. Rushdie, who was scheduled to talk at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, N.Y., some 75 miles south of Buffalo, was rushed to a nearby hospital by helicopter, the New York State Police said in a statement. The author’s condition is unknown, but Governor Kathy Hochul said at a midday presser that Rushdie was alive immedately after the attack and “getting the care he needs.” A New York Trooper assigned to the event immediately took the assailant into custody. A witness who was in the audience told The Post that Rushdie tried to run off the stage, and the two men scuffled before audience members rushed onstage to subdue the attacker. “As this was happening, several members of the crowd were yelling fearfully and saying ‘he’s stabbing him!’” the audience member said. The witness described the assailant as tall, and wearing a black hat and a mask. “This guy ran on to platform and started pounding on Mr. Rushdie. At first you’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then it became abundantly clear in a few seconds that he was being beaten,” another audience member, Rabbi Charles Savenor said. Savenor said the attack lasted roughly 20 seconds. Rushdie, 75, fell through a stage barrier following the attack, and witnesses told the Washington Post that they saw blood on the author’s hand. Henry Reese, Rushdie’s interviewer for the event and the

Rushdie is the author of numerous novels, including “The Satanic Verses.”

founder of an organization that works with exiled authors, received a minor head wound in the attack, police said. Video and photos from the event show blood spatter on the stage backdrop. Rushdie was treated for apparent injuries on stage prior to being medevaced. Hochul called the attack on Rushdie “heartbreaking.” She also thanked cops”I want to commend the state police,” she said. “It was a state police officer who stood up and saved his life” “Here’s an individual who has spent decades speaking truth to power, someone who has been out there unafraid, despite the threats that have followed him his entire adult life,” the governor said. Hochul commended the State Police for their quick response to the attack. Senator Chuck Schumer called the attack “shocking and appalling.” It is an attack on freedom of speech and thought, which are two bedrock values of our country and of the Chautauqua Institution,” he said on twitter. “I hope Mr. Rushdie quickly and fully recovers and the perpetrator experiences full accountability and justice.” The Chautauqua Institution, located in rural western New York, is a nearly-150-year-old non-profit that produces lectures and educational programming in the arts, education, religion and music.
Rushdie’s Friday talk was billed by the Institute as “a discussion of the United States as [an] asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression.” Rushdie’s work earned him death threats in the 1980s, when the Iranian government banned “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. In 1989, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. The Iranian government has since walked back the fatwa, but as recently as 2012 a semi-official religious organization inside Iran placed an over $3 million bounty on the author’s head. The assailant’s motive was unclear on Friday, and police have not identified the attacker. Rushdie is the former president of PEN America, a non-profit dedicated to defending free expression in literature. “PEN America is reeling from shock and horror at word of a brutal, premeditated attack on our former President and stalwart ally, Salman Rushdie,” the organization’s president Suzzanne Nossel said in a statement. “Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning, Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face,” she added. “Our thoughts and passions now lie with our dauntless Salman, wishing him a full and speedy recovery. We hope and believe fervently that his essential voice cannot and will not be silenced.” Additional reporting by Zach Williams and Post wires. News collected from NEW YORK POST.