Wikileaks: Journalists Across Globe Sign Petition In Support of WikiLeaks

[Hissyspit]

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/journalists-across-globe-sign-petition-in-support-of-wikileaks/s2/a541373/

Journalists from 34 countries have put their names to a petition in support of the whistleblowing organisation WikiLeaks following criticism of its founder and operations.

Hosted by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), the petition currently has 113 signatures from journalists in countries including the UK, US, Denmark, South Africa and South Korea.

The full list of signatories will be made public when more have joined the petition, but representatives from the the Forum for African Investigative Reporters and the Centre for Investigative Journalism in the UK have already put their names to the campaign, alongside other prominent investigative journalists and writers.

The petition's statement on the GIJN website says the group is particularly concerned with the reaction to WikiLeaks following the release last month of 400,000 previously classified US military documents relating to the Iraq war.

"We, journalists and journalist organisations from many countries, express our support for Mr Assange and Wikileaks. We believe that Mr Assange has made an outstanding contribution to transparency and accountability on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, subjects where transparency and accountability has been severely restricted by government secrecy and media control. He is being attacked for releasing information that should never have been withheld from the public," says the petition.

"We believe Wikileaks had the right to post confidential military documents because it was in the interest of the public to know what was happening. The documents show evidence that the US Government has misled the public about activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and that war crimes may have been committed."

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