Workers Sentenced To Lashes, Imprisonment For Participating In Protest

According to a New York Post interview published on Wednesday, Hadi Matar said he had only "read a couple pages" of Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses" and that a tweet in the winter announcing the author's visit to the Chautauqua Institution gave him the idea of going there.

Rushdie has lived with a bounty on his head since "The Satanic Verses" published in 1988 prompted Khomeini to issue a fatwa urging Muslims to kill him.

"I respect the Ayatollah. I think he's a great person. That's as far as I will say about that," the Post cited Matar as saying in a video interview from the Chautauqua County Jail.

"I don't like him very much," Matar said of Rushdie, adding that "He's someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems."

Some Western politicians and media have said that Iran's death fatwa against Rushdie makes it responsible for the incident and the United States should not continue nuclear talks with Tehran.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman on Monday, August 15, denied any links with the 24-year-old who stabbed the 75-year-old Indian-born author on August 12.

Vice News reported on Sunday, August 14, that according to European and Middle Eastern intelligence sources, Matar had been in contact with elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), a charge Matar denied. Matar was charged with attempted murder on Saturday.

Informed sources told Iran International Wednesday that the Intelligence Ministry as well as the security division of the country’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance have threatened more than 100 film industry figures to withdraw their signatures from a May statement titled “Lay down the gun”. They have been threatened to be banned from working in the film industry and leaving Iran unless they withdraw their signatures. 

The statement called on military and security forces who “have become tools for cracking down on the people,” not to suppress protesters during popular demonstrations in May.

The artists and moviemakers have been asked to announce that the signing of this statement was done under pressure by Mostafa Alehahmad and Mohammad Rasoulof, two filmmakers who were arrested July 8 as part of the crackdown on the signatories. 

According to reports, under the threat of security forces, about 15 people have so far withdrawn their signatures from the statement.

Iran International’s sources also said that 10 documentary makers have been informed that they are banned from leaving the country and that a list of artists who are banned from working will be announced next week.

In July, Iran’s judiciary said award-winning film director Jafar Panahi has been sent to Evin prison to serve his six-year sentence, after he was arrested as he was protesting the detention of Rasoulof and Alehahmad at the prosecutor’s office of the Evin prison.

Israeli ambassador George Deek released a video on Tuesday, saying that Iran’s ambassador to Azerbaijan Abbas Mousavi recently threatened to kill him. 

“He tweeted that I crossed a red line and that I would be buried by the people of Iran,” the Israeli envoy said, adding that “You can imagine my thoughts when I heard that author Salman Rushdie was stabbed before a speech; Iran also said that he had crossed a red line; Iran also threatened him with death. And the terrorist just tried to murder him in broad daylight.”

He added that “As someone who only weeks ago was directly threatened by an Iranian official, I urge you in the strongest possible terms: Take the threats of this murderous regime seriously.” “Don’t let them intimidate you, but do not dismiss them even for a single second.”

He referred to the Iranian threats to kill atheists, activists, and anyone who disagrees with them. “They threaten to spread terrorism throughout the world. They threaten to destroy Israel, democracy, and our freedom. They mean it; just ask Salman Rushdie,” he noted. 

He called on the international community to make sure the attack on Rushdie was the last stabbing in the name of medieval hatred through confronting the Iranian terrorism. 

Earlier on Tuesday, more than 250 Iranian public figures said in a statement that the United States must release details of the alleged ties between Rushdie’s attacker and the Islamic Republic.

The rial was trading just below 300,000 in Tehran’s unofficial exchange market for the first time since mid-May. The rial had fallen to as low as 330,000 a few weeks ago as hopes for a nuclear agreement with the United States were fading.

Iran responded to a European Union proposal to resolve the nuclear issue on Monday, in what seemed to offer the best chance since March to reach an agreement.

Iran’s currency began falling in early 2018 when signs emerged that former President Donald Trump was planning to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear agreement and possibly impose sanctions on Iran.

Once the US announced its withdrawal and imposed crippling oil export and banking sanctions, the currency gradually fell ninefold by 2021.

The rial has fallen 4,500-fold since the 1979 revolution that toppled the monarch. The currency was trading at 70 against the dollar in 1978 compared with 3,300 in 2017 and around 300,000 now.

Economists in Tehran have said in recent days that even if a nuclear deal is reached, the rial will not recoup most of its losses and will probably trade at around 240,000 to the dollar, because of serious structural economic issues.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic has repeatedly announced its readiness to deal with the issue of prisoners through various channels to the American side. 

“We are ready to implement this agreement so that the innocent Iranians imprisoned in America, who have become victims of the injustice of the judicial system of that country on false charges of violating the cruel and illegal sanctions of the United States, can be released and quickly return to their families,” he added. 

He made the remarks a day after numerous American officials reiterated calls on Iran to release American dual nationals imprisoned in Iran, deploring the detention of Iranian-American Siamak Namazi on his 2500th day in Iran's notorious Evin prison.

Iran, which does not allow consular access for dual nationals, holds citizens of several countries including Germany, Austria, and Sweden, as de facto hostages. There have reportedly been Tehran-Washington contacts aimed at a prisoner exchange that would free Iranians jailed in the US, mainly over breaching American sanctions.

In the past decade, Iran's Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on unproven allegations of espionage in what human rights organizations have said is essentially hostage taking.