Police are investigating bomb threats made on Twitter against several female journalists yesterday.
Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman and The Independent’s Grace Dent were among the women to receive threatening tweets from the anonymous user, @98JU98U989.
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Dent took a screen grab of her threatening tweet, which said: "A BOMB HAS BEEN PLACED OUTSIDE YOUR HOME. IT WILL GO OFF AT EXACTLY 10:47PM ON A TIMER AND TRIGGER DESTROYING EVERYTHING".
Other victims included Catherine Mayer, the Europe editor of Time magazine, Anna Leszkiewicz, editor of Oxford University’s student paper, the Cherwell, and Sara Lang, a social media manager at American non-profit AARP.
The anonymous account has now been suspended and, according to Freeman, the Metropolitan Police are investigating the incident.
The National Union of Journalists has this morning called for the Government to re-establish protective measures of third party harassment.
General secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: "Violent sexist threats should not be an occupational hazard for journalists. The threats of violence are an attempt to intimidate and silence women and they will fail.
"The NUJ will continue to push for action from companies in the industry and the government to tackle what is clearly a growing problem."
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