Scottish Police Investigate Threat against J. K. Rowling after She Condemned Salman Rushdie Stabbing
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Scottish police are investigating a threat made against author J. K. Rowling after she tweeted support for Salman Rushdie following his stabbing.
Indian-born Rushdie was stabbed repeatedly Friday while preparing to give a lecture in New York, suffering wounds to his neck and abdomen. His liver is damaged and he is likely to lose an eye, according to his agent.
Rowling responded to the attack on Twitter, saying, “horrifying news.”
“Feeling very sick right now. Let him be ok,” she added.
A user under the name MeerAsifAziz1 issued an apparent threat in a comment under her post, saying, “don’t worry you are next.”
.@TwitterSupport any chance of some support? pic.twitter.com/AoeCzmTKaU
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 13, 2022
Rowling turned to Twitter asking for support due to the violent nature of his tweet, and then said “police are involved. (were already involved on other threats).”
Scottish police said Sunday, “We have received a report of an online threat being made and officers are carrying out enquiries,” according to Reuters.
Rushdie had been in hiding for years after publishing his book The Satanic Verses in 1988, as Iran issued a series of threats calling for his death due to a depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
The former and first supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for the author to be killed in 1989, and an Iranian religious foundation issued a reward of over $3 million for anyone who kills Rushdie.
An Iranian government official said Monday that Iran did not bare any responsibility in the attack, and that Rushdie had himself to blame for the stabbing.
“We, in the incident of the attack on Salman Rushdie in the U.S., do not consider that anyone deserves blame and accusations except him and his supporters,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a briefing.
Police identified the suspect to be Hadi Matar, and a judge charged him with attempted murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree.
A review of Matar’s social media accounts showed that he “is sympathetic to Shia extremism and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGS) causes,” but there are no definitive links between Matar and the IRGS, and he has pled not guilty.
Rowling isn’t new to online abuse; she’s been subjected to a torrent of abuse since she began publicly criticizing the more extreme manifestations of progressive gender ideology several years ago, standing up for the right of women to be secure in female-only spaces and to compete in female-only sporting events.
