Freedom of expression under threats worldwide, including India, warns Rushdie

TIL Desk/National/New York/ Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie has warned against the “alarming” threats to freedom of expression around the world, including in India, as he accepted the Freedom to Publish honour at the British Book Awards, known as the Nibbies, in London.

In a video message from New York on Monday night, the 75-year-old Mumbai-born author who has lived under the shadow of a fatwa since The Satanic Verses was published in the 1980s said it was important to continue to fight for the freedom to express and to publish.

“We live in a moment, I think, at which freedom of expression, freedom to publish has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West,” said Rushdie in his first public address since a knife attack on him in August last year.

“Obviously, there are parts of the world where censorship has been prevalent for a long-time, quite a lot of the world – Russia, China, in some ways India as well. But in the countries of the West, until recently, there was a fair measure of freedom in the area of publishing,” he said.