Famed author Salman Rushdie attacked on stage moments before giving a lecture in New York

Salman Rushdie was attacked moments before giving a lecture in New York on Friday, a witness told Insider. The famous author was attacked on stage as he was being introduced at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua and was treated immediately. The attacker was immediately restrained, the Associated Press reported .

Social media users said it appeared that Rushdie was stabbed in the attack and was bleeding . Chautauqua Institution did not provide a comment when contacted by Insider. Local authorities could also not be immediately reached for comment.

Rabbi Charles Savenor, executive director of Civic Spirit, witnessed the attack. He said as Rushdie was attacked after he was announced on stage to the sound of applause and sat down in a chair. “As he sat down someone ran onto the stage and began to beat and pound Mr.

Rushdie,” Savenor told Insider. “I don’t know if the guy had a knife. ” “At first we thought ‘this can’t be happening,'” Savenor said.

Within 3 minutes, the amphitheater of about 1,000 was evacuated, Savenor said. “It happened very quickly. It was a man who ran very fast,” he continued.

“All I really saw was the guy’s back, he jumped onto the stage and began to beat him. I think he fell off the chair. The guy was pounding him on the chair.

It was really jarring. ” Savenor said security was on the stage “rather quickly” and soon after the police showed up. “I think people were in shock,” Savenor said.

“I think people were shocked, surprised, and dismayed. ” “At first nobody knew what to do with it,” Savenor said. “We were excited to hear him talk about how to support political writers.

” Video posted to social media of the event by Savenor shows a number of people rushing to the stage to attend to what appears to be Rushdie on the ground. Photos from the scene posted to Twitter by another user appear to show Rushdie being loaded into an ambulance and a man in police custody. Another Twitter user posted video of Rushdie apparently being loaded onto a Medevac helicopter.

Rushdie’s previous work “The Satanic Verses” was controversial and sparked death threats against the author. In 1989, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s assassination. Rushdie was scheduled to speak at the Chautauqua Institution for their Chautauqua Lecture Series event.

He was set to speak on this week’s theme of “More than Shelter,” according to the Institution’s website . He was joined by Henry Reese, co-founder of the Pittsburgh nonprofit City of Asylum, “for a discussion of the United States as asylum for writers and other artists in exile and as a home for freedom of creative expression. ” Savenor said he was supposed to discuss “political writers” and “also how to support them.

” He added that he was hoping to ask Rushdie “about how do we take uncomfortable or divisive topics and create productive, construction conversations,” he told Insider. “Clearly we didn’t get to that place,” Savenor said. “That pounding on the stage reverberated beyond the stage to the people in the auditorium, and now the whole world is talking about this.

It’s a really sad state of affairs. I was hoping that the conversation today would give us insight into what we could become as a society but rather it exposed the worst aspects of the divisiveness. ” This story is developing.

Please check back for updates. .