Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

 It finally happened. Somebody got to Salman Rushdie, attacking him with a knife. Apparently, he was stabbed in the eye because they said he is going to lose an eye. He is currently on a ventilator. They also said his liver is extremely damaged, and the nerves to his right arm were cut. 

It happened  at a literary event in western New York where he was about to give a speech. The young man who attacked him at this event is Hadi Matar from New Jersey, age 24. It is unknown whether anyone put him up to it, or if he acted alone. There is still the "fatwa" issued by Ayatollah Khomeni in 1989 because of Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. 

For many years, Rushdie lived in complete hiding and didn't attend anything. But, I guess the passage of time has led him to let down his guard.  Why didn't he have a body guard with him? Why didn't the Institute where he was speaking not have strict security about who could get in, whether they were armed, even with a knife? 

This is really bad. It's like Oswald being attacked in a police garage under the tightest security. But, that was all for show. In reality, his protectors, the Dallas Police, were his real killers. 

But, on what basis was Hadi Matar allowed to attend this event? Could anyone from the public go in? And why not at least have a barrier around Rushdie, and maybe even bullet-proof glass? Rushdie should never have agreed to do this. His people shouldn't have let him do it. 

You can watch the aftermath of it here:

 https://heavy.com/news/hadi-matar/

It's obvious that it was just a hodgepodge of people. So, anybody could get in. And there was no protection; nothing that would prevent an attacker from attacking. Why didn't they have an armed guard there, or even more than one? 

The Chautaugua Institution has a lot of explaining to do. They were negligent. They had a responsibility to protect him.

https://www.chq.org/ 

It's a small world because it so happens that my latest film, Joe Haladin: The Case of the Missing Sister, was selected to be in the Chautaugua International Film Festival.