JK Rowling is wrong to defend Donald Trump

The Harry Potter author supports Trump’s right to free speech – but what about my freedom to protest against him safely?

In December last year, I started a petition calling for Donald Trump to be banned from the UK, which gathered 585,000 signatures. So I was interested to read this week that JK Rowling has argued against a travel ban for the presidential candidate. Speaking to the PEN America literary gala in New York, the author said that while she personally finds Trump offensive and bigoted, “if you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justifications”. As much as I adore her work, I think she’s wrong. Rowling’s books tell us to challenge the powerful when they are wrong.

Related: JK Rowling defends Donald Trump's right to be 'offensive and bigoted'

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