French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose 12 staff members were gunned down in 2015 for cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad considered blasphemous by many Muslims, said on Saturday there was no justification for the knife attack on Salman Rushdie.
The British author, who spent years in hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his killing, was on life support following a stabbing at a literary event in New York state Friday.
“Nothing justifies a fatwa, a death sentence,” Charlie Hebdo said.
“As of this writing, we don’t know the motivations” of the attacker, he says, ironically speculating whether he was spurred on by global warming, declining purchasing power or the ban on watering potted plants during the current heat wave. .
The magazine’s editor, known as Riss and a survivor of the 2015 attack, said Rushdie’s attacker was likely a practicing Muslim and criticized “little, mediocre spiritual leaders who are intellectually lame and culturally ignorant”.
Rushdie’s 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” transformed his life when Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, ordering his assassination.
The novel was seen by some Muslims as disrespectful of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
