Police in Scotland announced on Sunday that they were looking into a “online threat” made against Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling after she tweeted her support for stabbed author Salman Rushdie.
As reported by a member of the public, “officers are carrying out enquiries” after receiving a report of an online threat, according to a Police Scotland spokeswoman.
Writing on Twitter on Friday, the 57-year-old author said she was “feeling very sick right now” after hearing about the attack on Rushdie in New York.
Someone then replied, “Don’t worry you are next,” via Twitter.
Rowling posted the response to Twitter with the question, “any chance of some support?”
“To clarify, you’ll be following these rules, right? “Violence: It is not permissible to make threats of physical violence against any person or group of people,” “I’ll add that, too, she said.
Apparently, the tweet was deleted on Sunday.
The author also confirmed in a tweet that law enforcement was notified.
Messages praising Rushdie’s murderer were also posted by the same Twitter account, which is thought to be based in Pakistan.
On Saturday, 24-year-old Hadi Matar was arraigned in a New York court for the stabbing death of author Salman Rushdie. Prosecutors described the attack as a premeditated plot in which Rushdie was stabbed around ten times.
Andrew Wylie, Rushdie’s agent, told the New York Times on Saturday that the author had started talking again, suggesting his condition had improved since Wylie had previously said that Rushdie was on a ventilator and in danger of losing an eye.