LONDON Human rights groups said Tuesday they've asked WikiLeaks to censor secret files on the Afghanistan war to protect civilians who've worked alongside the U.S. and other foreign forces from reprisals.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and three other groups have sent a series of e-mails to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calling for the names of Afghan civilians to be removed from the 77,000 classified military documents published by the online whistle-blower last month.
Nader Nadery, of the commission, said the groups want the names removed from files already released, and from any documents disclosed in the future.
"There was no consideration about civilian lives," Nadery said, noting a rise in assassinations of Afghan civilians seen as government collaborators.
He said the group had not yet received any response to its requests.
The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, the Open Society Institute and the International Crisis Group have also been involved in exchanges about the released documents.
Amnesty International spokeswoman Susanna Flood said that while other human rights groups had also sent a joint letter to WikiLeaks, Amnesty was not among its signatories.
Instead, she said that the London-based campaigners had communicated with Assange's group over the issue of the disclosure of identities of Afghans who've worked alongside international forces.
