Rowling slams “pathetic” UK government after arrest of Irish comedian
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, has called the UK government “totalitarian” and “pathetic” in response to the arrest of a comedian. Irish comedian and writer Graham Linehan was detained at London Heathrow Airport on Tuesday for posting messages about transgender individuals.
Linehan wrote on Substack: “In a country where pedophiles go unpunished, knife crime is out of control, and women are assaulted every time they protest, they called in five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer over this tweet (no, I swear I’m not making it up).”
Rowling, reacting to the arrest on X, wrote: “What the hell has Britain become? This is totalitarianism. It’s pathetic.”
Linehan described his experience of being detained: “I was arrested at the airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal, taken to a hospital because the stress nearly killed me, and banned from sending messages online—all because my jokes upset a bunch of deranged cross-dressers.”
He added: “In my view, this arrest proves one thing beyond doubt: Britain has become a country that attacks free speech, attacks women, and panders to the demands of badly behaved, violent, entitled men who’ve turned the police into their personal enforcers.”
For years, Rowling has been a leading voice in resisting men who claim to have been—or to have become—“women.”
