JK Rowling backed by Rishi Sunak over criticism of SNP’s new hate crime legal guidelines | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Rishi Sunak has backed writer JK Rowling in her criticism of Scotland’s controversial new hate crime legal guidelines.

The Harry Potter writer, who has change into a fierce critic of the Scottish Government’s stance on transgender rights, has been one of many highest-profile critics of the laws.

With the brand new legal guidelines giving safety to transgender individuals, Rowling – who doesn’t imagine individuals can change their gender – insisted: “Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.”

The Prime Minister stated: “People should not be criminalised for stating simple facts on biology.

“We imagine in free speech on this nation, and Conservatives will all the time defend it.”

In a social media post criticising the new laws, Rowling insisted that the “laws is huge open to abuse by activists who want to silence these of us talking out in regards to the risks of eliminating ladies’s and ladies’ single-sex areas”.

She said: “It is unattainable to precisely describe or deal with the fact of violence and sexual violence dedicated in opposition to ladies and ladies, or deal with the present assault on ladies’s and ladies’ rights, except we’re allowed to name a person a person.”

The children’s author also appeared to challenge police to arrest her if her social media posts break the new laws.

She said: “I’m at present in a foreign country, but when what I’ve written right here qualifies as an offence beneath the phrases of the brand new act, I stay up for being arrested after I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into effect on Monday, consolidating existing hate crime legislation and creating a new offence of stirring up hatred against protected characteristics.

However, women have not been given protection under the law, with the Scottish Government instead promising to bring forward legislation to tackle misogyny.

However, Humza Yousaf declared that he is “very proud” of the new laws, saying they will help protect against a “rising tide” of hatred.

The Scottish First Minister also insisted he is “very assured in Police Scotland’s skill with the intention to implement this laws in the way in which it ought to”.

It comes despite the force confirming more than an third of its officers have not yet completed an online training course in the new laws – with Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs saying that 10,000 of the force’s 16,000 plus officers have done so.

However Mr Yousaf said Chief Constable Jo Farrell had “made it very clear the suitable coaching is completely being supplied”.

She said recently that the new laws will be applied “in a measured manner”, promising there will be “shut scrutiny” of how the laws is enforced and what stories are obtained.