Guardian censors all comments on Saudi war crimes in Yemen

I was surprised to see even a mild critique of Saudi Arabia in The Guardian – since their silence about Saudi war crimes in Yemen has been deafening. Guardian reportage on the complicity of the U.S. and the U.K.in those war crimes has been similarly non-existent. 

In Mecca I saw little of Islam’s compassion, but a lot of Saudi Arabia’s neglect

so I tested the water.

I enquired politely below the line whether the complete absence of any mention of Saudi war crimes in Yemen, backed by U.S. & U.K weapons (surely relevant to an article bemoaning the lack of Islamic values in their treatment of pilgrims) was an example of The Guardian’s electric fence around news?

I linked to reports of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.

I had my answer in three minutes. The comment was deleted. The electric fence that The Guardian operates around acceptable news and acceptable criticism is fully operational.  

This first comment from ‘Bingostan’ on the article was fine though:

“In the West it’s the dippy Anglicans and conscience stricken Agnostics who have the compassion.

Them and the low rent celebs who follow such tragedies like jackels.”

It better reflected the values and standards of The Guardian community than my enquiry…

I tried again – this time obliged to self censor the words “war crimes” and any mention of the supply of weapons from the U.S. and U.K. which is how this charade works of course.

There are much bigger reasons to question the civility of the Saudi Regime – but The Guardian won’t report on them and my comments trying to correct that are deleted within minutes.

It seems that relaying the concerns of Amnesty International is something that falls below The Guardian’s journalistic and community standards.

www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/

You gonna delete this as well? People are watching…

I was going to post the permalink to the comment above… but it was deleted (vanished) before I had the chance to start typing this post!  It took about 60 seconds this time.

Far be it from us to suggest that loyal Haze readers should share this post or question The Guardian about this – but if you were to drop by into the comments section on this article, or contact the readers editor – do let us know how you get on…

https://www.theguardian.com/info/2014/sep/12/-sp-how-to-make-a-complaint-about-guardian-or-observer-content