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Could Harry Potter author JK Rowling be arrested under new law?
The Harry Potter author has not held back on her views regarding transgender issues, and recently challenged Scottish police to arrest her over new laws.
JK Rowling has caused yet another stir regarding transgender issues after the author posted a series of tweets related to Scotland’s new law put in place to, as put by first minister Humza Yousaf, combat the “rising tide of hatred” against transgender people.
Rowling, on X, posted that “Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls.”
She added: “It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man.
“Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.”
Could JK Rowling be arrested in Scotland? How long could her sentence be?
Rowling issued an online ‘plea’ where she said that “I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”
The Scottish National Party’s community safety minister, Siobhian Brown, had previously said that misgendering would not count as a hate crime, but it would be a police decision.
Brown told Radio 4 that the comments made by Rowling “could be reported and could be investigated. Whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland for that.”
The maximum penalty under the new act in Scotland is a jail sentence of seven years. According to the BBC, “a person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, ‘that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive,’ with the intention of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics.”
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sided with the Harry Potter author, saying that people should not be criminalised for stating “simple facts on biology. We believe in free speech in this country, and Conservatives will always protect it.”