There has been terrible retreat from freedom of expression. We should ponder that as we condemn this outrage
First there is shock and then despair at the news of the assault on Salman Rushdie. He had lived under the threat of the fatwa for decades. Even with the Iranian government’s retreat from the death sentence in 1998, he could never be sure that a lone individual would not attempt to kill him. And that may be what happened on Friday. It’s also possible that the attempt on Rushdie’s life may be linked to the US Department of Justice’s extraordinary announcement last week that it was charging a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with the use of interstate commerce facilities in a plot to murder former national security adviser John Bolton in 2021.
But that may just be a coincidence and it would be a desperate measure when there is now another chance for the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran to be revived.
Jo Glanville is former editor of Index on Censorship and former director of English PEN
