photo caption: Salah Nasser shows the 20 stiches he received after an attack by suspected pro-Saddam
Hussein agents)
By Michael Koslowski
Staff ReporterIraqi refugees in Vancouver fear for their lives after two were stabbed by alleged pro-Iraqi government terrorists.
"They came here with a killing intention...we are very lucky," Salah Nasser said yesterday.
The 31-year-old refugee was with a group of friends at his Nanaimo Street home when they heard a knock at the door.
When Nasser opened it, two men burst into the house. One was wielding a knife while another grabbed a second blade from the kitchen.
In the ensuing struggle both Nasser and Saad Jasem, 28, were slashed with knives in the neck and face. The two assailants then fled on foot.
Both men were taken to hospital where Nasser had 20 stitches and Jasem eight.
"They were swearing wildly and accusing us of speaking against the Iraqi government," he said.
"We are all afraid now...We do not know what else these terrorists could do--they don't respect any laws here."
Nasser was among Iraqi refugees who demonstrated in Vancouver against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War earlier this year.
Nasser was a physics student in Iraq who arrived in Canada two years ago and has been accepted as a refugee. He is seeking landed-immigrant status.
He said one attacker was involved in pro-Iraqi government demonstrations in Toronto this year.
"Iraqi intelligence has killed many people all over the world--we hoped to escape that in Vancouver," Nasser said.
Nasser warned the stabbings could mark the beginning of a campaign of violence in Vancouver and that former Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., Mohamed Al-Mashat, could be a target.
Two suspects were arrested shortly after the stabbings and face assault charges, police say.
(photo and text from July 15, 1981 The Province article)
Associated Press
TOKYO--A professor who translated British author Salmon Rushdie's The Satanic Verses into Japanese was found stabbed to death today, nine days after the novel's Italian translator was attacked in Milan.
The body of Hitoshi Igarashi, 44, an assistant professor of comparative culture at Tsukuba University, was found on the campus with slash marks to the neck, face and hands, police said.
Police refused to say whether they suspected a link between Igarashi's killing and his translation of Rushdie's controversial book. The scholar was an outspoken commentator on Islamic issues.
Rushdie has been in hiding since 1989, when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill the British author and offered a million-dollar bounty. The ayatollah said the book was blasphemous.
The Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, survived a July 3 knifing in Milan. Capriolo said he was attacked by a man who approached him on the pretext of translating a Muslim pamphlet and who described himself as Iranian.
The man escaped. Italian police said they had no suspects.
Gianni Palma, the Italian publisher of the Japanese translation, was himself attacked by an angry Muslim during a news conference announcing the book's publication in Tokyo in February last year.
Igarashi was not believed anti-Iranian in his views. He studied Islamic culture at Tokyo University and spent three years studying in Iran beginning in 1976.
In Britain, Rushdie offered his condolences to Igarashi's family and urged Iran to set
aside the death sentence before any more deaths occur.
(text of July 12, 1991 Vancouver Sun article)
-TO CONSIDER A DECEMBER 29, 1999 TERM OF REFERENCE ABOUT RUSHDIE AND "THE SATANIC VERSES", TAKE YOUR NEXT FOOTSTEP HERE.