The June issue of Red Pepper magazine has a good feature on Brighton's superb radical pirate radio station Radio 4A.

However, not all unlicensed stations have the same commitments to ethics. In my home city there have been various pirate stations - activist, pop, Asian, urban - on the air for years, with a wide mix of programmes. The output on most is enjoyable, but one station has a continued policy of promoting hardline Jamaican dancehall artists, such as Buju Banton, Beenie Man and Bounty Killa whose tracks advocate the assault or killing of gay people (and occasionally women). The station's announcers also occasionally make similar verbal comments.

With free media, there is bound to be output that you find offensive or disagree with, but after years of turning a blind eye to dancehall artists on the local pirates, there is mounting evidence to suggest that some of this music is fuelling physical attacks on gay persons in Jamaica and having a negative impact on black lesbians and gays. Today, the gay media site Rainbownetwork.com reports that the artist Buju Banton himself is on the run and sought by police in connection with a vicious hate crime in Jamaica.

Given this background, do you think it would be an appropriate response to report the offending station to Ofcom (which now enforces radio regulation and raids pirate stations) or leave them be on grounds of freedom of speech? What do Indymedia readers reckon?

www.y2kpirates.co.uk - for news of landbased pirate radio stations in your area