It is no exaggeration to say that shock has erupted around the world over the vile stabbing of Indian-born British writer

Salman Rushdie

.

Because in addition to the shocking nature of the attack itself, before a packed auditorium in New York while giving a conference in an area of ​​presumed security, there is the fact that is so difficult to digest in societies with freedoms such as ours that

the fanaticism of which He has been a victim for 33 years and remains intact

.

and especially serious

e is that, along with the logical messages condemning the attack from countless governments and organizations everywhere, there have also been

reactions as repulsive as those of Islamic radicals on social networks and those of the main conservative media in Iran

, praising the attacker and titling barbarities such as "Satan goes to hell" in reference to Rushdie.

Although the authorities and the main religious figures of the Islamic Republic yesterday kept a cowardly silence about what happened, no one is unaware that the newspapers would not have transferred such messages without the support of the authoritarian regime of the ayatollahs, which controls with an iron fist the censorship.

Iran is one of the main exporters of terrorism and sectarian hatred in the world, one of the countries that for decades has been most actively seeking

destabilization

both of the delicate

status quo

from the Middle East as well as from the West.

About Rushdie's attacker, a 24-year-old man, what had transpired at the close of this edition is that we would be dealing with a sympathizer of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

It should be remembered that

the writer has spent half his life on the run

, with continuous false identities, and who had already been the victim of more than half a dozen attempted attacks.

Everything since she posted

the satanic verses

, a work that many Muslims considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran.

In 1989, the Ayatollah

Khomeini

he promulgated a fatwa that supposed a veritable death sentence for the writer.

And, although years later, the new Persian authorities withdrew the reward of more than two million euros for his head in an attempt to end the economic blockade that weighed on Tehran, fanatical sectors of this country and others with a Muslim majority have continued pointing his anger at Rushdie, who hasn't been able to feel safe for a single day of his life.

"Freedom.

It has a beautiful sound.

Who would be against freedom?

But in our time many essential freedoms are in danger of being defeated, ”declared the writer in an eloquent speech, turned despite himself into a universal symbol of freedom of expression and the fight for human rights.

Their

dignity against fundamentalism

It must be a spur in the fight that we all have to fight against fanaticism and gags, which requires as much civic courage as the one he has shown for decades.

To continue reading for free

Sign inSign up

Or

subscribe to Premium

and you will have access to all the web content of El Mundo