For me personally, It started a few months ago, when I first noticed that an article that I had posted on IndyMedia UK suddenly disappeared (the persistent inclusion of the 'UK' is to distinguish IndyMedia UK from the wider IndyMedia movement with whom I presently have no dispute). In the midst of the controversy of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, I had been sent a link by the DU-Watch group to a site which had graphic and sickening pictures of rape which appeared to be of Arabic women at the hands of Western military personnel. I reposted the links on IndyMedia UK believing the photos to be genuine along with a caveat that there were discrepancies in the photos and that only the links had been posted as the pictures were extremely graphic and unpleasant.

It quickly transpired that the photos were very likely the product of a phenomenon called 'war rape porn', or something similar and in my naivety I had believed that they were possibly genuine. I immediately attempted to make a comment on my article to that end but found that it had 'disappeared'. Whilst I readily accepted that the photos did not have any relevance to the ongoing prisoner abuse situation, I felt there was a wider issue of the acceptance of such material and that it was used by some for pleasure. For that reason I posted a new article stating my reasoning. It never appeared. I followed this up with a series of postings claiming that my articles were being censored, none of which appeared. It was at this point that I took the step of e-mailing the IndyMedia imc-uk-list and received a reply from somebody in the Far East who explained the policy of 'hiding articles'.

Since then I have casually monitored the hiding of articles and noticed that any article which mentions RFID chips or bio-chip implants, chemtrails, fluoride and water fluoridation, aspartame, the New World Order or the Illuminati and anything which challenges the official September 11th story is very likely to be censored with a blanket statement that:

'This post contradicts the Editorial Guidelines and has been hidden from the newswire.'

That this message appears under the article on the 'View all UK newswire posts' page which is secreted away beyond the Editorial guidelines page is claimed to be proof by IndyMedia UK that this does not constitute censorship. To claim that 'hiding' is not censorship is nothing short of Orwellian doublespeak.

Having had numerous articles removed to the 'hidden' page and all protestations treated likewise I have taken it upon myself to resurrect links to the hidden articles to their own page on the

www.flamesong.com/imuk

It has also become apparent that a more disturbing policy has been practised, that of removing articles and comments by me (and possibly others) entirely. This may not be a permanently enforced process but it occurred for long enough for me to realise that it was real (several articled and comments posted at the same time by other people were published) and that I was not going to waste time attempting to publish under such restrictions. Like many contributors to IndyMedia UK, I have done so under numerous pseudonyms for the very reason that I have learned to distrust certain elements of the radical left. Many of my contributions have been well received and have been constructive in their respective campaigns. But for reasons of censorship and other worrying aspects of IndyMedia UK, explored in the next blog, I will probably not be participating in the IndyMedia UK mind game.