(Credit: WikiLeaks, org)

Editorsweblog reported Nov. 8 that the “The Global Investigative Journalism Network” has launched a petition to allow journalists to publicly express their support for Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange, whom they believe ‘has made an outstanding contribution to transparency and accountability on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.'”

See the petition here.  As of Nov. 11 at 3:20 PM EST, the petition had 152 supporters.

The letter reads in part:

“We, journalists and journalist organizations 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.

“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.”  See the whole letter here.