![]() You need a pass to access the grounds but it is not too difficult get in.” “The amphitheatre is a large outdoor venue where people have given lectures since the late 1800s. Chautauqua has always prided itself as a place where people can engage in civil dialogue. He said: “People were in shock, many people in tears. Jeremy Genovese, 68, from Beachwood, Ohio, a retired academic from Cleveland State University, told the Press Association news agency he arrived at the amphitheater as it was being evacuated and that people were “streaming out”. Gasps are heard around the auditorium as members of the public immediately evacuate the space. Phone footage captured moments after the attack shows audience members scrambling on to the stage to help. “We saw the man race a few steps across the stage and there was horror – the whole audience reacted, and probably 15 spectators raced on to the stage to try to attend to him, or so it seemed,” she said. Paula Voell, a retired journalist, told the Buffalo News that it was quickly apparent that an assault had taken place. ![]() Rushdie, author of 14 novels, had been invited to talk about the importance of the US offering asylum for writers and other artists in exile.Įyewitness reports said that a man wearing a black mask rushed onstage and began to attack Rushdie as he was sitting on the stage. The assault happened shortly before 11am at the Chautauqua Institution near Erie in western New York state close to Lake Erie, about 400 miles (644 km) north-west of New York City. He wrote on Twitter: “We’re thankful to good citizens and first responders for helping him so swiftly.” The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described the attack as “appalling”. Photograph: Charles Savenor/Local News X/TMX/Reuters Rushdie is tended to after he was attacked during a lecture. He added, “The fact that this attack could occur in the United States is indicative of the threats to writers from many governments and from many individuals and organizations.” Reese, who co-founded an organization that provides residencies to writers facing persecution, was released from the hospital on Friday and said in a statement that Rushdie was “one of the great defenders of freedom of speech and freedom of creative expression”. Rushdie’s interviewer, Henry Reese, 73, was also attacked and suffered a minor head injury, police said. ![]() The author’s legs were being held up above his chest, presumably to keep blood flowing to the heart. Photos taken by an Associated Press reporter show Rushdie lying on his back, with a first responder crouched over him. ![]() “People were screaming and crying out and gasping.”Ī doctor in the audience helped tend to Rushdie while emergency services arrived, police said. “A man jumped up on the stage from I don’t know where and started what looked like beating him on the chest, repeated fist strokes into his chest and neck,” Bradley Fisher, who was in the audience, said. A New York state police trooper providing security at the event arrested the attacker. Stunned attendees helped wrest the man from Rushdie, who had fallen to the floor. Authorities later identified the man suspected of stabbing Rushdie as 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, who had bought a pass to the event.Īn Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin assaulting Rushdie as he was being introduced to give a talk to an audience of hundreds on artistic freedom.
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