The Society Against Sexual Orientation Dis-crimination (SASOD) has launched a campaign to prevent the broadcast of anti-LGBT music and hate speech on the radio.
As part of its ‘Stop Hate Music Campaign,’ SASOD is encouraging members of the public to alert the organization whenever they hear any discriminatory statements or songs on the radio seeking to demean lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons.
“Basically, the essence of the campaign is that we are asking persons to report any anti-LGBT hate music and related rhetoric, utterances, sentiments expressed by radio DJs and talk show hosts,” Director of SASOD Joel Simpson told Stabroek News yesterday.
He explained that the campaign was motivated because several persons have been calling SASOD and complaining about hearing anti-LGBT music being played on the radio on Saturday afternoons. As a result, Simpson explained, the organization became concerned that those types of music seem to be making a reappearance on local TV and radio stations.
“And because we don’t have the resources to actively monitor all the stations, we said let’s have the country, the community, the people police this for us. And so we are asking people if they hear it to report the radio station, the time they heard the lyrics, whether they heard the DJ saying something homo or transphobic,” he added.
Whenever persons report to the organization, Simpson said, it will contact the respective radio station and indicate to them what was brought to their attention. “We are going to say the date and time we got the report—and the info can be anonymous just in case persons don’t want their names involved because it’s a small country and people might fear victimization—[and] we will ask if they can verify the report,” he noted.
Simpson related that so far they’ve received a couple of reports and when they contacted the radio stations they have often related that it wasn’t done by any of their ‘in-house’ radio hosts but by private persons to whom they sell air time. However, Simpson related that even if the remarks and music are played by private persons, the management of the radio stations are still responsible for the content. “It’s not an excuse to say it’s not an in-house DJ or host and we are sorry. You have to ensure that anybody you sell radio time to respects everything within your licences because at the end of the day it’s your radio station,” he added.
Additionally, he explained that while radio stations are supposed to have a delay mechanism whereby they would be able to actively monitor all their live programmes and should be able to block out any offensive or discriminatory remarks before it reaches the airways, it doesn’t seem as if they are actively employing or ensuring that they have such a setup in place.
“Anyone can turn on a radio and listen regardless of age, belief, creed and conviction and you might be a school child or in public transportation and tune onto the radio and this is the kind of hate inciting rhetoric that reaches you,” he noted, while adding that the organization wants to be as proactive as possible in order to nip the issue in the bud.
Against this background, Simpson said that with a new board of directors of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) being appointed, SASOD has started a conversation with several of the members to address the issue and to develop a formal mechanism that will be in place for when they receive the reports.
“The GNBA is responsible for policy and content and we are advocating with the new board for the development of some regulations and mechanisms about how they are going to deal with and appropriate penalties for these radio stations,” he said, before adding that SASOD is not just concerned with hate being peddled towards its constituents but with every facet of discrimination on the airwaves.
Simpson is urging anyone who might have heard hate music or rhetoric on any radio station to call 225-7283, 623-5155 or make a report to socialchange@sasod. org.gy.
