Amid an try by US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt congressionally allotted funding from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the broadcaster’s audiences within the international locations it covers are voicing assist and admiration for its journalism.
From Iran to Belarus, Afghanistan to Russia, Pakistan to Ukraine: Readers and listeners praised RFE/RL journalists for his or her courageous, neutral, and trustworthy reporting on the entrance strains of conflict and in among the world’s most repressive political and media landscapes — and expressed concern that it might vanish.
“I dwell in a small village. We don’t have satellite tv for pc or dependable Web. Your radio [is] giving me hope,” one listener in Iran wrote in a Telegram message to Radio Farda, RFE/RL’s Persian-language service.
One other listener from Iran posted on social media that Radio Farda “is my predominant supply of knowledge due to its unbiased {and professional} reporting.”
“Shedding it could be very tough. I hope that day by no means comes,” the listener wrote.
Trump on March 14 signed an govt order aiming to cut back seven federal businesses – together with the US Company for International Media, which oversees RFE/RL and different US taxpayer-funded broadcasters like Voice of America (VOA).
After the chief order was revealed, Kari Lake, senior adviser to the company’s performing CEO, despatched a letter saying the Congress-approved grant that funds RFE/RL had been terminated.
RFE/RL is nonetheless persevering with its work and on March 18 filed a federal lawsuit to dam USAGM’s try and terminate the broadcaster’s federal grant that gives funds essential to function.
Not like VOA, which is a federal company, RFE/RL is a personal, nonprofit company, with company headquarters in Delaware and editorial headquarters in Prague.
Breaking By ‘The Darkness Of Lies’
In Ukraine, the place RFE/RL has coated Russia’s full-scale invasion from the entrance strains because it was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022, reader Oleh Prozorov thanked RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service for its “safety of political freedoms.”
“Typically you have been like a ray of sunshine that broke by way of the darkness of lies,” Prozorov wrote on Fb.
In a message to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, reader Lesya Bondaruk expressed concern of dropping “a bastion of actual freedom of speech and thought.”
“An assault on Radio Liberty is an assault on humanity’s freedom of speech. This can’t be allowed,” she wrote.
Readers and viewers of RFE/RL’s Russian-language providers expressed gratitude for his or her protection of the nation amid a gradual decline in press freedoms throughout Putin’s 25 years in energy that intensified following the Ukraine invasion.
“I’m in Russia, engulfed within the zombifying, villainous propaganda of the Kremlin. Present Time is the one Russian-language TV channel that may be trusted, with goal info and lots of documentary packages,” wrote one viewer of RFE/RL’s 24/7 Russian-language tv channel.
“I’m endlessly amazed by your reporters who danger working in front-line areas, the professionalism of your anchors, and the excessive stage of journalism,” one other Present Time viewer wrote in a message to the community.
‘Ray Of Hope’ In Afghanistan
Lots of of messages and calls have poured in from RFE/RL listeners in Afghanistan and Pakistan expressing deep concern concerning the destiny of the broadcaster’s Afghan Service, identified domestically as Radio Azadi, which broadcasts within the Dari and Pashto languages, and Radio Mashaal, a Pashto-language service in Pakistan.
“Radio Azadi is essential for us. It retains me knowledgeable concerning the world. I take heed to it day and evening, each on the radio and my cellphone,” Radio Azadi listener Haji Khodaiberdi wrote in a WhatsApp message.
“Radio Azadi is a ray of hope for international locations which might be typically forgotten. Its packages join folks from small villages to the world. Dwelling in a distant village with just one radio, I discover its voice really comforting. I hope your packages all the time stay robust and vibrant,” listener Safa Mehr wrote.
One other listener, Nabiullah Zabuli from Afghanistan’s southern Zabul Province, urged Trump and “everybody who can affect this determination to rethink” reducing funding for Radio Azadi.
“Please don’t betray your tens of millions of loyal listeners. Hold this beacon of knowledge alive,” he wrote.
Heela Darkhast Ahmadzai, a Radio Azadi and Mashaal listener, stated in a Pashto-language Fb submit that each channels are “sources of enlightening our minds and considering.”
“We Pashtun girls discovered quite a bit from these two radio stations,” she wrote. “And we got here to find out about our rights, schooling, and concerning the world from these two platforms.”
One other Radio Mashaal listener, Ebadullah Khan from the Shangla district in northwestern Pakistan, stated on Fb that the broadcaster’s journalists “did their job with braveness” and that their “journalistic efforts in spreading consciousness among the many persons are nice.”
‘This Story Should Go On’
In Belarus, the place the federal government of Belarusian autocrat Aleksandr Lukashenko has all however worn out impartial media, RFE/RL’s Belarusian-language service is one in all only a handful of reports organizations persevering with to report critically on authorities.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one reader, Zmitrok Siemieniuk, stated that he instantly rushed to search out out what was happening and got here throughout Radio Svaboda’s YouTube channel.
“There have been tens of millions of views, which helped me grasp what was actually happening, and I nonetheless use Radio Svaboda’s channels,” he wrote on Instagram. “You present information freed from propaganda and hatred. I can find out about crucial occasions taking place on this planet. And, after all, right here I can learn the information in my native language.”
One other reader, Tatsiana, stated that Radio Svaboda “is the one place on this planet the place I might really really feel like a citizen of a free, European Belarus.”
“In 2020, tens of millions of Belarusians who took half within the peaceable revolution towards Lukashenko’s brutal authoritarianism embraced Radio Svaboda’s values, whereas it live-streamed these historic occasions in actual time,” she wrote in a personal message.
“Its mission stays unfinished immediately — this story should go on.”