Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan claimed on Saturday that The Guardian had misrepresented his statement ostensibly condemning the attack on controversial author Salman Rushdie .
A tweet posted on the official account of the PTI quoted Khan as saying that the British newspaper misrepresented his interview. He then goes on to explain how he had actually shed light on the Islamic method of punishing a blasphemer. It was in this context, he claims, he had spoken about Rushdie.
“The Guardian took my speech out of context. I refused to attend the seminar on inviting the accursed Salman Rushdie to India. In the interview [with The Guardian], I explained the Islamic method of punishing a blasphemer. I referred to the Sialkot tragedy, and spoke of Rushdie in the same context,” PTI’s Twitter handle quoted Khan as saying.
دی گارڈین نے میری گفتگو سیاق و سباق سے ہٹ کر پیش کی۔ میں نے بھارت میں ملعون سلمان رشدی کو مدعو کرنے پر سیمینار میں شرکت سے انکار کیا۔ انٹرویو میں، میں نے گستاخ رسولﷺ کو سزا دینے کے اسلامی طریقہ کار کی وضاحت کی۔ سانحہ سیالکوٹ کا حوالہ دیا، اسی تناظر میں رشدی کی بات کی۔
عمران خان pic.twitter.com/ioG7dlTNZX
— PTI (@PTIofficial) August 19, 2022
Rushdie was attacked in New York on August 12. He was set to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution when a man stabbed him as he was being introduced. The attacker was later overpowered.
On Friday, the PTI chief had ostensibly condemned the attack during an interview with The Guardian. He said that while uproar across the Muslim world following the publication of The Satanic Verses was understandable, the attack was unjustifiable.
“I think it’s terrible, sad,” the paper quoted Khan as saying.
The PTI chief had refused to participate in an event a decade earlier that Rushdie was slated to attend too. The two had traded barbs after.
