WHRB Pulls Program Off Air

WHRB officials said yesterday that they have decided to take the weekly rap music show "Streetbeat" off the air because the show represents a security problem for the station and its members.

The WHRB station manager said he made the decision after one attack on the station and threats that if the show was aired, the WHRB offices would be ransacked again.

On Saturday, November 4, five people claiming to be members of an organization called "The Cambridge Radical Group," attacked the station, forcing WHRB to go off the air for about fourteen hours, officials said last week.

And Marc D. Peters '89-90, WHRB station manager, said yesterday that one week after the attack, an individual called the station threatening to return if "Streetbeat" went on the air during its scheduled time.

"It was solely a security decision," Peters said. "[The attackers] adequately demonstrated they are serious enough, and since we couldn't adequately defend the station against intruders, I decided it wouldn't be wise to continue the program."

The station manager, who arrived "within seconds" of the first incident, described the attack as "traumatic." He said that WHRB staffers, who were forced into a record library by the five-person group, felt "powerless."

Security Check

For the past week, station officials have been meeting with a representative from the Harvard Police who has been doing a security check on the WHRB headquarters in the basement of Memorial Hall.

"The sergeant said that it's easy to break a window, toss in a molotov cocktail and `goodbye record collection,'" Peters said.

Peters said that after the attack, a man identifying himself as a member of the "Cambridge Radical Group"--a name which Peters said he felt was made-up--called the station complaining that the "Streetbeat" deejay had "insulted" his friends, the show's guest rappers.

But Peters said yesterday he felt that the real reason the station had been attacked was that WHRB officials had told the rappers they would not be allowed to return since they had violated station policy by using profanity on the air.

"Something like this had to happen sooner or later," Peters said "Broadcast is an interactive medium and it's easy to identify the person."

"Streetbeat"--whose removal has provoked many letters calling for its reinstatement--will be off the air until January, when the station chiefs reevaluate all their programming, Peters said. Until then, the station will fill the Streetbeat time slot with Harvard Hockey games and a reggae program.