Rushdie says curbs on free speech 'attack human nature'

All attempts to curb free speech are "an attack on human nature", British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie said Tuesday at the start of the world's biggest book fair in Frankfurt.

 "Limiting freedom of expression is not just censorship, it is also an assault on human nature," Rushdie told a news conference.

 "Expression of speech is fundamental to all human beings. We are language animals, we are story-telling animals," he said, insisting that free speech was a universal principle.

 "Without that freedom of expression, all other freedoms fail," he said.

 Rushdie has had an Islamic death sentence hanging over his head for a quarter of a century over his 1989 book "The Satanic Verses".

 Iran's then supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa saying the author should be killed, forcing Rushdie to go into hiding, with the British government placed him under police protection.

 The decision to invite him to speak at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which opens later on Tuesday, sparked a boycott by Iran of the exhibition.

 "I always thought in a way we shouldn't need to discuss anymore about freedom of speech in the West, it should be like the air we breathe," Rushdie said.