Writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck while giving a lecture in the United States. The incident took place at the Chautauqua Institute in western New York, AP reports.. Rushdie participated in the institute's annual summer lecture series.

The 75-year-old writer had just stepped onto the stage to introduce himself before a performance when a black-clad unidentified man approached him and stabbed him.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at a press conference that Rushdie survived and was flown by helicopter to the hospital..

More details on the severity of Rushdie's injuries are not yet available..

The perpetrator was arrested at the scene, state police said..

Police also said a state police officer was assigned to Rushdie's lecture and made the arrest.. For unknown reasons, security measures were not tightened despite decades of threats to the writer and a reward on his head in the Muslim world - more than $ 3 million to anyone who kills him..

Rushdie is a British writer of Indian origin.. He is especially known for his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988..

In Iran, the book was banned for blasphemy, and the supreme leader of Iran at the time, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a religious death sentence, a fatwa, against Rushdie.

Khomeini used a fatwa to call on Muslims to kill Rushdie, but in 1998 the Iranian Foreign Ministry assured the UK that the fatwa would not be enforced.

At the same time, Iran believes that a fatwa can only be annulled by those who issued it..

Khomeini died in 1989, a few months after Rushdie's fatwa was issued..

Khomeini's successor, Iran's current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, said in 2005 that Rushdie's fatwa is still valid..

The threats forced Rushdie into hiding under the British government's protection program, which included round-the-clock armed guards..

However, in recent years, Rushdie has been able to live an open life.. Lives in Mangettan, New York since 2000.