PM backs JK Rowling as row over Scotland’s new hate crime legal guidelines escalates | UK Information

Rishi Sunak has stated individuals shouldn’t be criminalised “for stating easy details on biology” as he backed writer JK Rowling in her criticism of recent Scottish hate crime legal guidelines.

The Harry Potter writer, who has grow to be a fierce critic of the Scottish authorities’s stance on transgender rights, dared police to arrest her because the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act got here into impact yesterday.

The brand new measures intention to sort out the hurt brought on by hatred and prejudice, extending protections from abusive behaviour to individuals on grounds together with age, incapacity, faith, sexual orientation and transgender identification.

Showing to defend the writer, Mr Sunak promised that his celebration will “at all times shield” free speech in an announcement.

“Folks shouldn’t be criminalised for stating easy details on biology,” he stated.

“We consider in free speech on this nation, and Conservatives will at all times shield it.”

In a social media submit criticising the brand new legal guidelines, Rowling insisted that the “laws is vast open to abuse by activists who want to silence these of us talking out concerning the risks of eliminating ladies’s and women’ single-sex areas”.

The 58-year-old argued: “It’s unattainable to precisely describe or sort out the fact of violence and sexual violence dedicated in opposition to ladies and women, or tackle the present assault on ladies’s and women’ rights, until we’re allowed to name a person a person.”

Reacting to feedback made by Siobhan Brown MSP, a Holyrood minister who stated individuals “may very well be investigated” for misgendering somebody on-line, Rowling stated: “I am presently in another country, but when what I’ve written right here qualifies as an offence beneath the phrases of the brand new act, I sit up for being arrested after I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”

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It got here as a gaggle of protesters staged an indication exterior Holyrood in opposition to the brand new legal guidelines.

One of many organisers, Stef Shaw, instructed Sky Information there may be “nice trigger for concern” over the brand new laws.

Mr Shaw, often known as the Glasgow Cabbie, stated he noticed no positives to the act, saying it would solely trigger main issues.

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Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf has maintained that he’s “very proud” of the brand new legal guidelines, saying they may assist shield in opposition to a “rising tide” of hatred.

He insisted that he’s “very assured in Police Scotland’s potential with a view to implement this laws in the best way it ought to”.

Chief Constable Jo Farrell stated lately that the brand new legal guidelines will probably be utilized “in a measured means”, promising there will probably be “shut scrutiny” of how the laws is enforced and what experiences are obtained.