Support mounts for Dutch author who received online death threats

Support is mounting for Dutch author Pim Lammers, who pulled out of writing a poem for this year’s children’s books promotion event Kinderboekenweek after receiving online death threats. ‘Writing a poem is not worth getting death threats for,’ Lammers said in a statement on the website of the event organiser CPNB. The sheer volume of threats and aggression aimed at me and my loved ones has prompted me to give back the assignment.’ Organiser CPNB said it was ‘horrified’ at the online attacks and said ‘a discussion must be had about the safety of authors’. Junior culture minister Gunay Uslu said on Twitter that ‘whatever you think of an author’s work, to play prosecutor and judge from behind a computer is worrying and harmful’.