Terrorist Attack over The Jewel of Medina
According to the Telegraph four people have been arrested in London over an alleged terror attack which may be linked to the publishing of a controversial book. My first thought was this happened during Banned Books Week and my second is how scary for the publisher and the author. The publisher is still planning on releasing the book on October 15th. However their offices will be closed on Monday. Also author Sherry Jones has made a statement about the bombing you can read here. Here is the article below.
The arrests are thought to be linked to a fire at a property in Islington, north London, which is used as the home and office of publisher Martin Rynja.
His company, Gibson Square, recently agreed to publish a controversial novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride, entitled The Jewel of the Medina. The blaze, which led to people being evacuated from the house, may have been started by a petrol bomb pushed through the letter box.
Initially, three men, aged 22, 30 and 40, were detained at around 2.25 am this morning in the Islington area of north London after a fire at a property in Lonsdale Square.
Two were stopped by armed officers in Lonsdale Square, and the third was seized following an armed vehicle stop near Angel underground station.
Police are searching four addresses around north-east London – two in Walthamstow, one in Ilford and one in Forest Gate.
The men, who were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, are being questioned at a central London police station.
Later a fourth person, a woman, was arrested at a property in Ilford for allegedly obstructing the police, a spokesman for Scotland Yard said.
The police confirmed that there has been small fire inside the property in Lonsdale Square, which had to be put out. “At this early stage it is being linked with the arrests,” the spokesman added.
Yard officials have refused to identify those arrested or give any information on the nature of the terrorist plot they are alleged to have been planning.
Residents in Lonsdale Square said armed police, assisted by fire-fighters, broke down the door of number 47 at around 2.30 this morning.
Francesca Liebowitz, 16, who lives five doors away with her parents, said: “The police couldn’t get the door open so the fire brigade battered it down.
“There was smoke coming from around the door, but I don’t know whether that was because of the door being broken down. They evacuated people from the house. It’s a bit scary to have this happen on your doorstep, nothing like this has ever happened round here before.”
A neighbour and friend of Mr Rynja said the company normally published books on current affairs, and said the publisher had never expressed concerns that his work might endanger his safety. A green hoarding covered the doorway to the four-storey town house this afternoon.
Controversial Jewel of Medina Book To Be Published In October
According to The Guardian
British independent publisher Gibson Square has bought Sherry Jones’s controversial novel about the child bride of Muhammad, which was dropped by Random House US following warnings that it could incite acts of violence from radical Muslims. Jones’s The Jewel of Medina was also pulled from bookshops in Serbia last month after pressure from an Islamic group.
Gibson Square, which has previously published provocative works including Alexander Litvinenko’s Blowing up Russia and House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, paid what it described as a “compelling” advance to acquire The Jewel of Medina. It will publish it in October in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
“In an open society there has to be open access to literary works, regardless of fear,” said Gibson Square publisher Martin Rynja. “As an independent publishing company, we feel strongly that we should not be afraid of the consequences of debate. If a novel of quality and skill that casts light on a beautiful subject we know too little of in the West, but have a genuine interest in, cannot be published here, it would truly mean that the clock has been turned back to the dark ages. The Jewel of Medina has become an important barometer of our time.”
Random House was told by security experts and academics that the novel, for which it paid a $100,000 advance, was potentially more incendiary than both Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses and the Danish newspaper cartoons of Muhammad. Random House said at the time that it decided not to publish the title “for the safety of the author, employees of Random House Inc, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the book”. The publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 saw attempts made on the lives of Rushdie’s Italian and Norwegian publishers, while the Japanese translator of the book was killed.
Rynja said that as a small publisher, Gibson Square would be more capable of handling any controversy. “With a book that is controversial – and we’ve done a number – it is incredibly important that it is looked at from all sides. That is very difficult for a large publisher to do as they are looking at 200 titles a month so a controversial one is just one in the mix.”
He said that he hoped that once people read the novel in its entirety there would be a “healthy discussion” about its content. “[Jones has] done very careful and detailed research for the novel – she’s writing about this love story which even after 1,400 years we don’t know much about.”
Rynja struck the deal with Jones’s agent Natasha Kern, who has also sold the novel to Editora Record in Brazil and is in discussions with small Danish publisher Trykkefrihedsselskabets Library (Free Speech Library).
Kern said that she and Jones decided on Gibson Square because they wanted a publisher who would commit to the novel and Jones’s career, “as well as an editor and publisher who are passionate about bringing The Jewel of Medina to widest possible group of readers. We wanted to publish this book as quickly as possible so that all those who are interested can read the book and discover what a wonderful and inspiring love story Sherry has written.”
Gibson Square also publishes John McCain, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Naomi Klein, Richard Dawkins and AN Wilson.
You can read the first chapter here
