Salman Rushdie slams bid to boycott PEN

London: Salman Rushdie, who went into hiding after a 1989 fatwa called for his death over his book The Satanic Verses, said his old friends, Peter Care and Michael Ondaatje were “horribly wrong” in boycotting a New York literary gala honouring the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Six prominent novelists — including Carey, Ondaatje and Teju Cole — are boycotting the New York literary gala next week to protest against the French satirical magazine being honored with a freedom of expression award.

Carey told the New York Times that “a hideous crime was committed, but was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN America to be self-righteous about?”, adding: “All this is complicated by PEN’s seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognise its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.”

Reacting to this, Mr Rushdie described the authors as “six pussies” lacking character and said their decision would only encourage intimidation, reported the Telegraph. “If PEN as a free speech organisation can’t defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organisation is not worth the name,” he was quoted as saying by the Times.

“The award will be given. PEN is holding firm. Just 6 pussies. Six Authors in Search of a bit of Character,” Mr Rushdie wrote on Twitter on Monday. Gerard Biard, Charlie Hebdo’s editor in chief, and essayist Jean-Baptiste Thoret, who escaped the attack by arriving late to work, will accept the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award on behalf of their colleagues.

Meanwhile, the free speech organisation has said that “in paying the ultimate price for the exercise of their freedom, and then soldiering on amid devastating loss, Charlie Hebdo deserves to be recognised for its dauntlessness in the face of one of the most noxious assaults on expression in recent memory”.