: Iran denies being involved in attack on Salman Rushdie #IndiaNEWS #International Dubai: An Iranian government official denied Monday that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie,

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Iran denies being involved in attack on Salman Rushdie #IndiaNEWS #International
Dubai: An Iranian government official denied Monday that Tehran was involved in the assault on author Salman Rushdie, in remarks that were the countrys first public comments on the attack.
The comments by Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman of Irans Foreign Ministry, come over two days after the attack on Rushdie in New York.
However, Iran has denied carrying out other operations abroad targeting dissidents in the years since the countrys 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite prosecutors and Western governments attributing such attacks back to Tehran.
“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,� Kanaani said. “Nobody has right to accuse Iran in this regard. �
Rushdie, 75, was stabbed Friday while attending an event in western New York. He suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, his agent said. He was likely to lose the injured eye.
His assailant, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack through his lawyer.
The award-winning author for more than 30 years has faced death threats for “The Satanic Verses. � Irans late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding his death. A semiofficial Iranian foundation had put up a bounty of over million for the author, though it has yet to offer any comment on the attack.
Kanaani added that Iran did not have any other information more than what the American media has reported. �
The West “condemning the actions of the attacker and in return glorifying the actions of the insulter to Islamic beliefs is a contradictory attitude,� Kanaani said.
Khomeini, in poor health in the last year of his life after the grinding, stalemated 1980s Iran-Iraq war had decimated the countrys economy, issued the fatwa on Rushdie in 1989. The Islamic edict came amid a violent uproar in the Muslim world over the novel, which some viewed as blasphemously making suggestions about the Prophet Muhammads life.
While fatwas can be revised or revoked, Irans current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who took over after Khomeini — has never done so. As recently as February 2017, Khamenei said: “The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued. �
Since 1979, Iran has targeted dissidents abroad in attacks. Tensions with the West — particularly the United States — have spiked since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled America out of Irans nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
A Trump-ordered drone strike killed a top Iranian Revolutionary Guard general in 2020, further fueling those tensions.

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