Trump's decision to cut Radio Free Europe comes at a great cost to democracy

Yahoo

24-03-2025

In 2003, when I first walked through the doors of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), one of the first things I noticed was the wall of fallen heroes, RFE/RL journalists murdered for simply reporting the truth. Their names and photos were a chilling reminder that this wasn't just a job. It was a mission.
Before then, I'd already reported from some of the world's most dangerous places, most recently as the Afghanistan bureau chief for the Turkish news agency IHA. But nothing prepared me for that moment in September 2006 when I sat at my desk, and the editor on duty announced: 'We are leading today's news hour with the killing of Ogulsapar Muradova.'
Muradova, RFE/RL's correspondent in Turkmenistan, had been arrested there weeks before. Her family was later told to collect her body—bruised, battered and bearing the unmistakable signs of torture. There was no autopsy. No court case. No justice.
Her crime? Reporting the news.
On March 15, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) terminated RFE/RL's federal funding grant, along with that of its sister organization, Radio Free Asia, and placed the vast majority of Voice of America staff on administrative leave—effectively gutting the organization and silencing its work. The justification? Cost-cutting.
But this isn't just a budget cut. In the words of RFE/RL President Stephen Capus, 'It would be a massive gift to America's enemies, the dictators' who have spent decades trying—and failing—to silence RFE/RL.
For nearly 75 years, RFE/RL has been a voice for those silenced by their own governments, from the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc to today's authoritarian regimes in Central Asia, Russia, Iran and beyond. It has exposed corruption, countered disinformation and provided a rare platform for citizens to speak out in places where doing so can mean prison—or worse.
During Tajikistan's civil war, RFE/RL's Tajik service, Radio Ozodi, became the country's most trusted news source. When the Turkmen government outright banned the word 'COVID-19' during the pandemic, RFE/RL was the only source telling the truth about the virus.
Across its broadcast region, RFE/RL's investigative work has led to real change: schools suddenly repaired, electricity restored, health crises averted, officials forced to act on citizen complaints—simply because RFE/RL exposed their failures.
Though despised by those in power, our words were impossible to ignore. During my time as director of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, Azatlyk, it was widely known that transcripts of our daily broadcasts reached the president's desk.
That is the power of free media. That is the power the U.S. government is now poised to destroy.
The U.S. will save $142 million per year cutting RFE/RL —less than the price of a single F-35A fighter jet.
Elon Musk called for the shutdown of U.S.-funded media, including RFE/RL, in a February post on X. That paved the way for its downfall. Last year, Musk's company SpaceX launched 138 Falcon 9 rockets. RFE/RL's annual budget of $142 million costs less than two Falcon 9 flights. And unlike billion-dollar space tourism ventures, which benefit a handful of billionaires, RFE/RL serves 47.4 million people every week
From Moscow to Beijing, Tehran to Kabul, authoritarian regimes have long understood that their greatest threat is not foreign armies, but free information. That's why they have jailed, tortured and murdered journalists. That's why they have expelled foreign media, banned independent outlets and built firewalls to block the truth from reaching the people.
And now, instead of continuing to promote free information and democracy, America is handing those authoritarian regimes exactly what they want.
Since the Cold War, RFE/RL has been America's most powerful soft power tool, a direct challenge to the lies and propaganda of authoritarian states. As Natan Sharansky and other former prisoners of communism have testified, RFE/RL was a source of hope, a reminder that America had not forgotten them.
Today, that mission is as urgent as ever.
Russia's war in Ukraine has turned state media into an engine of military propaganda. China's influence operations have expanded across Asia, Africa and Europe. The Taliban runs Afghanistan's airwaves. Iran censors the internet and jails dissenters. And yet, as authoritarianism rises, America is retreating from the fight.
The void left by RFE/RL's shutdown won't remain empty for long.
Will it be filled by independent journalism? No.
It will be filled by Russian disinformation. By Chinese Communist Party propaganda. By Iranian state-controlled outlets spewing anti-Western rhetoric. By the Taliban's 'Mullah Radio.'
This decision not only weakens America's influence; it actively undermines President Trump's own stated policy goals on free speech. It contradicts everything the U.S. has claimed to stand for: freedom of the press, support for democracy and a commitment to human rights.
And for what? To save a fraction of a fraction of the federal budget?
As these broadcasts go silent, I think of the journalists who risked everything to report for RFE/RL. Many are still in prison, their futures uncertain. They include:
Ihar Losik (RFE/RL Belarus Service) — jailed since June 2020.
Vladyslav Yesypenko (RFE/RL Ukrainian Service) — detained in Crimea in 2021.
Farid Mehralizada (RFE/RL Azerbaijani Service) — imprisoned since May 2024.
Nika Novak (RFE/RL Russian Service) — arrested in 2023 for exposing Kremlin corruption
Cutting RFE/RL means they've now been abandoned by the country that once stood behind them.
And what about the dozens of RFE/RL, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia journalists working in Prague and Washington on European and U.S. work visas? Without a job their visas will be terminated. Many of them cannot return to their home countries because their governments consider them enemies.
This is not what they signed up for.
During my time at RFE/RL, U.S. congressional delegations from both sides of the aisle, along with foreign secretaries, repeatedly stood in our newsroom and thanked our journalists and acknowledged their role in bringing democracy to the places that needed it most.
Today, as autocracies rise and democracy backslides, do any of the Republicans who used to praise RFE/RL still have the courage to do the same?
This decision isn't just about RFE/RL. It's about America's commitment to the truth, to freedom, to the very ideals it once championed on the global stage.
If this administration allows RFE/RL to die, it will not just be a mistake of phenomenal proportion, but it will also be a historic abdication of America's role in the world.
And the cost will be paid by millions who are left voiceless.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com