THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Sir Salman Rushdie has launched a fierce attack on the Indian government for pandering to extremist Muslim groups and failing to protect freedom of speech after threats of violence forced him to withdraw from a top literature festival.
According to eyewitnesses, a group of around 50 Muslim men had infiltrated the crowd shortly before the session was due to begin an dwere intimidating members of the audience to give up their seats. Organisers were said to bewildered over how they managed to get past a bar code security pass system and hundreds of police.
Jaipur's police commissioner B. L Soni said protesters had earlier registered as delegates and were present inside in significant numbers.
In a television interview Sir Salman said he believed the government had sought to stop him from appearing at the festival to win Muslim votes in its key Uttar Pradesh state election campaign and had circuited [sic] “fantastically fishy” intelligence reports of assassination plots to stop him to force his withdrawal.
He said the arts were under assault from both Hindu and Muslim extremists and that “if it goes on, India will cease to be a free country.” India had been the first country in the world to ban his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, ahead of Muslim countries which denounced it as ‘blasphemous’, and today lagged behind countries like Turkey, Egypt and Libya which have lifted the ban. » | Dean Nelson, New Delhi and Rachel Rickard Straus in Jaipur | Tuesday, January 24, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Sir Salman Rushdie prevented from speaking by video link at Jaipur literature festival: Sir Salman Rushdie was prevented from speaking to the Jaipur literature festival audience by video link today after a Muslim mob infiltrated the venue, the police warned of violence and the organisers received death threats. » | Dean Nelson, New Delhi | Tuesday, January 24, 2012
