LONDON: More than 200 leading international authors including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Franzen on Thursday slammed Russia's anti-gay and blasphemy laws as a "chokehold" on creativity as Sochi prepared for the Winter Olympics.

In an open letter published in Britain's Guardian newspaper, the writers said recent legislation outlawing religious insult and the "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors, along with the recriminalisation of defamation, "specifically put writers at risk".

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