Salman Rushdie: Freedom of expression in West is under severe threat

In a public speech, writer Salman Rushdie warned that freedom of expression in the West is under its most severe threat in his lifetime. The appearance came nine months after being stabbed onstage.

The 75-year-old Rushdie appeared to be leaner than before the attack and was wearing spectacles with one tinted lens. When he was attacked at a literary event last year, he was blinded in his right eye and suffered nerve damage to his hand.

Rushdie received the 'Freedom to Publish' award at the British Book Awards when he delivered a video address.

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As quoted by The Associated Press the organisers said the honour "acknowledges the determination of authors, publishers and booksellers who take a stand against intolerance, despite the ongoing threats they face."

During the ceremony, he said, that "we live in a moment, I think, at which freedom of expression, freedom to publish has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West."

He added, "Now I am sitting here in the US, I have to look at the extraordinary attack on libraries, and books for children in schools. The attack on the idea of libraries themselves. It is quite remarkably alarming, and we need to be very aware of it, and to fight against it very hard."

Rushdie was stabbed multiple times while he was preparing to deliver a lecture on a stage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state last year in August.

Rushdie spent years hiding under death threats from Iran because of his infamous novel The Satanic Verses. The novel was banned in many countries with large Muslim populations.

The book was published in 1988 and a year later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then supreme leader of Iran, pronounced a fatwa, calling upon Muslims to kill the novelist and anyone involved in its publication for blasphemy. Even a bounty worth millions of dollars was raised to murder the novelist.

Rushdie received the Booker Prize in 1981 for his novel Midnight's Children. His most recent work, Victory City,which he finished a month before the attack, was released in February.

(With inputs from agencies)

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