J.K. Rowling
Author J.K. Rowling poses for a portrait while publicizing her adult fiction book "The Casual Vacancy" at Lincoln Center in New York October 16, 2012. Reuters/Carlo Allegri

J.K. Rowling recently denounced US presidential candidate Donald Trump by comparing him to the evil character in the “Harry Potter” series. Rowling proclaimed and wrote that Trump is worse than the wizard villain.

BBC Newsbeat tweeted that Rowling’s criticism is why people started calling Trump as Voldemort. The author expressed that the fictional Dark Lord was not as bad, as she described on Twitter.

In the “Harry Potter” series, Lord Voldemort is a half-blood wizard who is obsessed with blood purity. He shuns non-magical folks (muggles), half-blood and muggle-born wizards. In an interview with Time magazine, Rowling described the character as “incredibly power-hungry and racist.” The said characteristics are reportedly what draws the parallelism and comparisons between Voldemort and Trump.

Trump has been accused of racism when he openly discriminates and stereotypes the minorities living in America during his speeches. Recently, while speaking at a rally in South Carolina, the business mogul made another controversial statement where he claimed that there is a “great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population” in reference to the recent shooting spree in California last week. He also added that America "needs a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States while we figure out what the hell is going on.”

Trump’s polarising statement was met with condemnation on Twitter. Rowling was not the only celebrity and political figure to criticise Trump’s rumblings.

US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said that the idea was “reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive.” Meanwhile, one of Pakistan’s most prominent human rights lawyers, Asma Jahangir, described the statement as “the worst kind of bigotry mixed with ignorance.” Incumbent UK Prime Minister David Cameron also lambasted Trump’s statement by calling it “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong."

Despite the backlash, Trump remains defiant. Trump re-read the controversial statement while on board USS Yorktown and said that the statement was “very salient and important,” adding that it was “probably not politically correct” but goes on to say that he does not care, Independent reports.

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