Bomb threat against provincial daily

Reporters Without Borders voiced shock today that the Norrköpings Tidningar (a daily based in Norrköping, southwest of Stockholm) received an anonymous letter on 23 August warning that four bombs would be set off in the town, one of them next to the newspaper, if it did not stop carrying reports about organised crime and did not apologise for the reports already published. "We are outraged by this attempt to silence journalists by such methods," the press freedom organisation said. "We call on the Swedish authorities to take these threats seriously and to do everything necessary to track down those responsible." Reporters Without Borders added: "A threat like this should be a wake-up call in a country such as Sweden, where press freedom is taken for granted." This is the second time the newspaper has been the target of threats of this nature in a month. An anonymous letter received on 8 August contained death threats against one of its reporters who had written a story about organised crime rings. Editor Karl-Åke Bredenberg said: "This is very serious, this is our possibility of working in a free society that is being threatened. But we won't be silenced." Founded in 1758, the Norrköpings Tidningar is Sweden's oldest newspaper.