Police have been rounding up, detaining and arresting journalists throughout the week at the Republican National Convention. But tens of thousands of people across the nation have responded with demands to protect free speech.

This morning, local advocates and independent journalists delivered more that 60,000 letters to St. Paul City Hall calling on Mayor Chris Coleman and local law enforcement officials to drop all charges against journalists arrested while covering protests outside the Republican National Convention.

The signatures were garnered in less than two days as people expressed their outrage over St. Paul’s attempts to stifle independent journalists documenting what’s happening outside the highly orchestrated activities and speeches in the Xcel Center.

Journalists have been widely targeted during the four days of the convention. On Monday, local law enforcement officials arrested Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and two producers from her show, Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke, and several independent videographers while they were covering protests outside the RNC. The Democracy Now! crew has been released but still faces serious charges.Other independent journalists have also been pepper-sprayed, and reporters with I-Witness were even held at gunpoint during a “pre-emptive” raid aimed at disrupting protesters.

On Thursday, the final night of the convention, it appears that authorities ratcheted up their attacks on both protesters and credentialed journalists, lobbing tear gas and percussion grenades into crowds and arresting student journalists, local photographers, Associated Press reporters, and two MyFox journalists, among others.”

From the first [smoke] bomb until the time when they herded everyone onto the bridge was about 15 minutes,” said MyFox national editor John P. Wise in an article on MyFox.com. “They cuffed me, took the [press] credential off me, checked my pockets. I was told a couple of different times that they were going to let [the media] go … but then I saw they were tagging my camera bag.”

The letters delivered today demands that Mayor Coleman and local authorities immediately “free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them.” This call has been echoed by groups the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, The Newspaper Guild, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Writers Guild of America, East.

Nancy Doyle Brown of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, who helped present the letters, expressed her frustration and anger over the treatment of journalists.”

The targeting and harassment of journalists that we’ve seen during the RNC sends the message that the Twin Cities don’t value the essential role that journalists play in a democracy,” she said. “From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States. We’re bringing Mayor Coleman more than 50,000 letters from people across the nation demanding that all charges pending against these journalists be dropped.”