Society

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty chief warns funding cut benefits authoritarian regimes

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Image
RFE/RL CEO and President Stephen Capus called the decision a “massive gift” to governments and autocrats in Russia, China, Iran and Belarus. Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Image
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The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has condemned the U.S. government’s decision to cut the international broadcaster’s federal funding, saying it will empower authoritarian regimes and limit access to accurate news.

On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order to drastically reduce the operations and staff of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees government-funded platforms such as Voice of America and RFE/RL.

The funding cut comes amid growing concerns over press freedom worldwide, with governments in countries such as Russia and Iran tightening control over media and limiting access to foreign outlets.

RFE/RL CEO and President Stephen Capus called the decision a “massive gift” to governments and autocrats in Russia, China, Iran and Belarus.

“Handing our adversaries a win would make them stronger and America weaker,” he said in a statement.

“Without us, the nearly 50 million people in closed societies who depend on us for accurate news and information each week won’t have access to the truth about America and the world,” he added.

An ‘epochal event’


Barys Harecki, the deputy head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said that cuts to RFE/RL’s Belarusian service Radio Svaboda was an “epochal event.” Speaking to Poland’s state press agency PAP, he said that the funding cut, alongside the loss of USAID support, opened the door to state propaganda.

He noted the station had had a vital role in broadcasting uncensored news, including exposing the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The authoritarian Belarusian regime’s fear of free media was made clear when journalists were detained during the 2020 anti-government protests, Harecki added.

RFE/RL, which has HQs in the Czech capital Prague, as well as in Washington, D.C., operates in 27 languages across 23 countries, mainly in eastern Europe and central Asia.

Set up as two separate stations in the 1950s, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty originally broadcast to countries under communist rule during the Cold War.
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