'Harry Potter' author JK Rowling receives death threat for defending Salman Rushdie

Scotland's police investigating a report of an 'online threat' made to the author after she tweeted about Rushdie

LONDON:

Scotland's police said Sunday they are investigating a report of an "online threat" made to the author JK Rowling after she tweeted her condemnation of the stabbing of Salman Rushdie. The Harry Potter creator said she felt "very sick" after hearing the news and hoped the novelist would "be okay."

In response, a user said, "don't worry you are next." After sharing screenshots of the threatening tweet, Rowling said, "To all sending supportive messages: thank you police are involved (were already involved on other threats)."

A spokeswoman for Scotland's police said: "We have received a report of an online threat being made and officers are carrying out inquiries."

Rushdie remained hospitalised on Saturday with serious injuries a day after he was repeatedly stabbed at a public appearance in New York state, while police sought to determine the motive behind an attack that drew international condemnation.

The accused attacker, 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault at a court appearance on Saturday, his court-appointed lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, told Reuters.

Rushdie, 75, was set to deliver a lecture on artistic freedom at Chautauqua Institution in western New York when police say Matar rushed the stage and stabbed the Indian-born writer, who has lived with a bounty on his head since his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. Many Muslims believe the book contained blasphemous passages. It was banned in many countries with large Muslim populations upon its 1988 publication.

A few months later then Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, pronounced a fatwa, or religious edict, calling upon Muslims to kill the novelist and anyone involved in the book's publication for blasphemy. Rushdie, who called his novel "pretty mild," went into hiding for nearly a decade.

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