Activists put pressure on WikiLeaks

A coalition of human rights groups has called on WikiLeaks to remove details of civilian Afghans who were named when the website released more than 77,000 classified United States Army documents on the war in Afghanistan.

In a series of emails sent to the website's founder, Julian Assange, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), Amnesty International and three other prominent rights groups called on the whistleblower website to expunge the names of Afghans mentioned in the war logs because of fears they could be targeted by insurgents.

Nader Nadery, from the AIHRC, said he and the four other rights groups in Kabul had written emails to Assange but had yet to hear back from the WikiLeaks founder.

"There was no consideration about civilian lives," he said, adding that Afghan civilians seen to be collaborating with Nato forces are often assassinated by insurgents.

"We said that in the future the names should be redacted and the ones that are already there need to be taken down. Even though it's late, it is still worth doing."

The emails, which were also sent on behalf of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, the Open Society Institute and International Crisis Group, are the first clear indication that some human rights activists are at odds with the way the Afghan logs were published.

WikiLeaks, which has been behind some of the most impressive scoops of recent years, gave three newspapers early access to the classified documents. They then published their findings simultaneously last month.

Until now, criticism of the decision to leak the logs - or the way they were published - has largely been confined to those governments involved in the war in Afghanistan and media commentators. The US Government has gone on the offensive against WikiLeaks with reports surfacing in the US that Defence Department officials are considering asking Britain, Germany and Australia to bring criminal charges against Assange.

The website may also come under pressure from Sweden, where WikiLeaks operates some critical internet servers.

The country has been a safe haven for Assange's site, but one Swedish official quoted in the Sydsvenskan newspaper said Wikileaks was vulnerable because it has no licence to publish material in Sweden.

In his latest tweet, posted on Tuesday, Assange said: "Don't be fooled on the 'human rights groups'. No formal statement. US led."

Assange has called on human rights groups, Nato and the US Government to help it trawl the logs and redact names that may be sensitive. A WikiLeaks spokesman, who uses the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told AP: "That request remains open. However, the Pentagon has stated that it is not interested in 'harm minimisation' and has not contacted us, directly, or indirectly to discuss this offer."

The newspapers involved in the initial analysis of the war logs have also felt compelled to defend their decision to publish in recent days.

Eric Schmidt, a reporter at the New York Times who worked on the documents, said: "On this story, as with all sensitive military/ intelligence/ national security articles, we took great care to mitigate any threat to US service members, Afghan security forces and informants working with the US in Afghanistan; as well as US national security, and sensitive sources and methods. We redacted the names and other identifying details from the incident reports we published in the Times."

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