Australia's biggest media organizations have blacked out their newspaper front pages in an effort to fight perceived government press censorship.

The protest, which is part of a larger campaign called Right to Know, comes after the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided one news organization's office as well as the home of a prominent journalist.

The campaign also cites 60 different pieces of legislation that have been introduced over the last two decades in the country that it claims seek to "criminalize journalism and penalize whistleblowing."

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In a rare display of unity, Australia's major media organizations have come together this week to make a stand against censorship.

Every front page of the country's major newspapers appeared censored on newsstands on Monday, as various outlets joined the Right to Know — a campaign for media freedom.

"Australia is at risk of becoming the world's most secretive democracy. We've seen the public's right to know slowly erode over the past two decades, with the introduction of laws that make it more difficult for people to speak up when they see wrongdoing and for journalists to report these stories," David Anderson, managing director of Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), said in a release issued to Business Insider.

"No one is above the law but something in our democracy is not working as it should when we fail to protect people acting in the public interest."

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The campaign cites 60 different pieces of legislation that have been introduced over the last two decades in the country — laws it claims seek to "criminalize journalism and penalize whistleblowing."

It comes after a string of concerted and highly controversial attacks on the Australian media this year. In June, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided the ABC's Sydney offices as well as the Canberra home of a News Corp journalist. According to the news agencies, the raids had been organized over articles that relied on leaked documents from whistleblowers. Both media organizations are waiting to hear the outcome of each investigation and whether their journalists will face prosecution.

—Richard D Boyle (@Richard_D_Boyle) October 20, 2019

In response to Monday's campaign, AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw told a Senate inquiry that the AFP had launched an internal inquiry into its media investigations.

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"The review will not be an audit into current matters at hand but rather a holistic approach to ensure we have in place investigative policy and guidelines that are fit for purpose," Kershaw said.

He was less sure in his answering of whether or not more media raids were planned.

"This is not just about police raids of journalists' homes and our nation's newsrooms," Nine Entertainment's CEO Hugh Marks said. "This is much bigger than the media. It's about defending the basic right of every Australian to be properly informed about the important decisions the government is making in their name."

Whistleblowers in particular appear to have been in the government's firing line. Take the case of Richard Boyle, an employee with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), who went to the media after his organization planned to take money from people's bank accounts without their knowledge. In doing so, he threw his entire career away and now faces being sentenced to up to 161 years imprisonment if found guilty.

The media is now calling for legislative changes to protect whistleblowers like Boyle as well as the journalists who endeavor to tell their stories. The proposed reforms would prevent journalists from being jailed and force the government to consider the public interest before conducting raids and prosecutions.

Without these, Australia's media is warning that the news may as well just be censored like the newspapers front pages that were published on Monday.