JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter book series, has slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin after he complained about the cancellation culture during a video conference with cultural elites, saying the West was attempting to “cancel” Russia, equating the treatment to his own country. Rowling has already spoken out against opinions deemed transphobic by some members of the public in response to them.
“JK Rowling was recently deposed because she despised ‘gender libertarians.’ “Western,” Putin stated during the conversation, “we are trying to annihilate an entire 1,000-year-old country, our people.”
Later in the debate, Putin compared the current situation in the West with Russian culture to Nazi Germany’s censorship. “The last time such a broad campaign to destroy literature was carried out by the Nazis in Germany about 90 years ago,” Putin remarked, adding that “Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, and Rachmaninov are boycotted.”
Credit: Russian television, Putin pushes for a military takeover in Ukraine.
Rowling responded to Putin’s comments on Twitter, writing, “Criticism of Western abolitionist culture is not well heard by those who are now executing civilians or imprisoning and poisoning their opponents.”
Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics. #IStandWithUkraine https://t.co/aNItgc5aiW
March 25, 2022 — J.K. Rowling (@jk rowling)
Rowling also decried the Russian invasion of Ukraine and provided a link to a BBC article from 2021 about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. She has previously stated that her children’s charity has been collaborating with the Ukrainian government since 2013, and that she launched a fundraising the day after the Russian invasion to aid “thousands of youngsters stuck in Ukraine’s orphanages.”