The Czech Republic is pushing for EU assist to maintain Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) working after the Trump administration minimize funding for the worldwide broadcaster.
International Minister Jan Lipavsky mentioned RFE/RL, based mostly in Prague, “is among the few credible sources in dictatorships like Iran, Belarus, and Afghanistan”.
In Jap Europe, the US government-funded outlet reached tens of millions of listeners through the Chilly Battle, serving to to unfold democratic values whereas communist authorities tightly managed native media.
Elon Musk, in control of cost-cutting beneath Donald Trump, dismissed RFE/RL as “radical left loopy individuals speaking to themselves whereas torching $1B/12 months of US taxpayer cash”.
However RFE/RL’s president and CEO Stephen Capus mentioned axing the broadcaster’s grant settlement “can be an enormous present to America’s enemies”.
“The Iranian Ayatollahs, Chinese language communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would rejoice the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years,” he added.
Mr Capus’s concern was echoed by the impartial Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ), which complained that hundreds of journalists can be hit by the US funding minimize – and that some working in censored international locations have been already “in grave hazard”.
RFE/RL says it reaches a weekly viewers of practically 50 million individuals in 23 international locations, together with Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan and ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Czech overseas minister Mr Lipavsky informed the BBC he was engaged on constructing a “platform of nations” to assist the station, however added that they “should be very cautious and conscious of the USA, which has this operation on their aspect”.
“We are going to attempt to do every little thing to maintain this group with 75 years of legacy afloat,” he mentioned.
RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia and Voice of America (VOA) have relied for many years on funding from the US Company for International Media (USAGM).
President Trump signed an government order on Friday to chop their funding after Musk had scorned them on X, saying “shut them down”.
The transfer contrasts with the media insurance policies of authorities in Russia, China and Iran, who’ve poured funding into their state broadcasters to counter the impression of Western liberalism all over the world.
Most of VOA’s full-time workers have been placed on administrative depart and the broadcaster’s contractors, who dominate the non-English language companies, have been laid off, the AFP information company studies.
