A petition is circulating on the Internet to rally academics to the defense of their colleagues in Iraq. As the petition states:"A little known aspect of the tragedy engulfing Iraq is the systematic liquidation of the country's academics. Even according to conservative estimates, over 250 educators have been assassinated, and many hundreds more have disappeared. With thousands fleeing the country in fear for their lives, not only is Iraq undergoing a major brain drain, the secular middle class - which has refused to be co-opted by the US occupation - is being decimated, with far-reaching consequences for the future of Iraq."

The petition has been signed thus far by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, John Pilger, Michael Parenti, Tony Benn, Eduardo Galeano.

The petition was launched by the BRussells Tribunal and has been endorsed by CEOSI (Spain), the Portuguese hearing of the WTI, Iraktribunal.de (Germany), the Swedish Antiwar committee, the IAC (USA), the International Association of Middle East Studies (IAMES), the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO) and the European Association for Middle Eastern Studies (EURAMES).

This weekend Historians Against War (HAW) voted at a meeting at the annual convention of the American Historical Association to back the petition drive.