Latest news with #BayFang
16 hours ago
- Business
They fled their home countries to report from the safety of the U.S. Now, they fear they're in danger
An ongoing U.S. retreat from defending liberal democracy has left some allies in danger of being exposed, stranded on a metaphorical battlefield. Under U.S. President Donald Trump's hard-nosed foreign policy, unapologetically based on profit, not principle (new window) , multiple democracy-promotion tools are being dismantled. This includes Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is being defunded. Created in the aftermath of China's 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, it reports in nine Asian languages (new window) , using web sites, social media and short-wave radio to get news to audiences with limited access to uncensored media. With most of its U.S.-based staff laid off, some RFA employees who report from the safety of Washington. D.C., now risk losing not only their jobs but also their work visas and could face deportation to an uncertain future in their homelands. Bay Fang, president and CEO of Radio Free Asia, in a near-empty newsroom that was humming with activity only weeks ago. (Alex Panetta/CBC News) Photo: (Alex Panetta/CBC News) Hour Hum is one of them. He fled Cambodia in 2017 after some of his colleagues (new window) were arrested (new window) and RFA had to shutter its office (new window) . He went into hiding in Thailand. After seven years, he finally got a work visa and came to the U.S. with his wife. He likened it to reaching heaven after years in hell. Now, with a one-month-old to care for, he's clinging to his job as layoffs sweep across the newsroom. His wife is feeling anxious again as she did during those years in hiding, Hum said, fearing deportation. If they don't kill me, they'll put me in jail, he said of his prospects in Cambodia, where reporters are routinely arrested and international organizations say independent journalism is increasingly impossible (new window) to do. It's almost the same thing. Part of wider cuts The defunding of RFA comes amid a wave of similar cuts to foreign initiatives, including the complete abolition of the U.S. international-aid agency (new window) . The Trump administration sent a letter in March (new window) announcing that RFA's funding, $60 million US a year, was terminated. It was part of the same executive order (new window) that ended financial support for the main Canada think-tank (new window) in Washington and other U.S. government-funded news outlets, including Voice of America. Almost 90 per cent of U.S.-based RFA staff – nearly 400 people – have been laid off. Several dozen remain employed, as funding is still arriving in irregular spurts while the organization fights the cuts in court (new window) , arguing the president illegally undid funding already approved by Congress. Staff deemed most at-risk in their home countries are being kept on as long as possible while some money is still available. Some have opened asylum claims. 'It's what keeps me up at night' In her office, in a nearly empty bureau in Washington, RFA president Bay Fang recounted one anecdote after another of staff arrested over the years, along with some of their friends (new window) and relatives (new window) . In North Korea, a soldier was jailed (new window) in 2020 for just listening to RFA. It's heartbreaking. It's what keeps me up at night, Fang said. "[They're] thrown in jail because of their reporting.… Throughout it all, they wanted to keep going. They felt like it was their calling to actually let the world know what was happening in their country. The fact that now it could be the U.S. government silencing them is just heartbreaking. Début du widget Widget. Passer le widget ? Fin du widget Widget. Retourner au début du widget ? How RFA angered autocrats In the years since it was created in 1996, RFA's reporters have broken (new window) stories on camps (new window) in China for the Muslim Uyghur minority. They did early reporting on a strange new virus (new window) ripping through central China in 2020, getting tips from sources inside the country being arrested (new window) for speaking (new window) about COVID-19. They called up crematoriums in Wuhan (new window) and heard about staggering numbers of bodies and funeral homes publishing jobs ads seeking overnight staff. They broke stories (new window) about Chinese-controlled police stations (new window) within North America and intimidation of diaspora communities. In Myanmar, a villager found a phone with evidence of soldiers bragging about committing war crimes, with photos and evidence of throats being slit and decapitations. He got the phone to Radio Free Asia, which broke that story (new window) . So it's no surprise that reaction to the demise of RFA has been buoyant in some of those countries. In this speech in Saudi Arabia, Trump ridiculed past American administrations that tried to spread U.S. values to the world. (Alex Brandon/The Asssociated Press) Photo: (Alex Brandon/The Asssociated Press) In China, the government-affiliated Global Times (new window) called RFA and other U.S.-funded news operations a relic of Cold War ideological propaganda and welcomed its entry into the dustbin of history. The so-called beacon of freedom, it wrote, referring specifically to Voice of America, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag. There was a celebratory Facebook post from Cambodia's longtime leader, Hun Sen, accused (new window) of rampant corruption (new window) and the killing (new window) and jailing of political opponents (new window) . He applauded Trump for leading the world in combating what Sun called the scourge of fake news (new window) . And as the U.S. pulls back on funding news, China and Russia are expanding (new window) their footprint (new window) , with state-run outlets like RT and CGTN opening dozens of stations and bureaus in Africa alone. A different world Such moves reflect a world where autocracies are spreading (new window) and the number of democracies has been shrinking (new window) for decades. And, indeed, one argument for scaling back funding for foreign state-funded news organizations such as RFA is that the world scarcely resembles the one in which it was founded. It was inspired by an earlier Cold War model: Radio Free Europe. Originally funded (new window) by the CIA, RFE broadcast in over a dozen Eastern European languages since the 1950s. There was overwhelming political support for RFA as it was built over the 1990s and entrenched into law in 1997 in a 401-21 vote (new window) in Congress. A year later, when China's government blocked (new window) RFA's reporters from covering a presidential trip (new window) there, Bill Clinton personally met with those reporters and granted (new window) them interviews. But the world and the U.S. position in it have changed. Back then, the internet barely counted as mass media. Today, there are more smartphones in the world (new window) than people, allowing myriad ways to communicate. The U.S. no longer has the same power to set the terms of the global conversation as it did when it had 10 times (new window) China's GDP, unrivalled military dominance (new window) and a balanced budget (new window) , as opposed to exploding debt (new window) today, and a less-dominant (new window) military. Part of wider cuts to government-funded media The Trump administration itself has said virtually nothing about its rationale for eliminating Radio Free Asia, specifically. It has justified gutting government-funded media in general, from the agency (new window) that oversees Radio Free Asia, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe to NPR and PBS (new window) . He was elected in large part to reduce the federal bureaucracy, right? State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said when asked about the cuts to Radio Free Asia. It's about waste and fraud, mismanagement. This is something that has to occur. A man in Beijing stands in front of tanks on the Avenue of Eternal Peace June 5, 1989, during the crushing of the Tiananmen Square uprising. Radio Free Asia was founded seven years later as a way to get information to people who had little access to uncensored media. Photo: AP / Jeff Widener, File Fang is emphatic, however: That even in a world with countless ways to communicate, there's still a role for an organizations like hers. She described a staffer working day and night, relentlessly calling sources in China to report on the Uyghur internment camps. That was broken from here, she said. U.S.-based staff, working in Mandarin, also broke stories about COVID for which there was voracious appetite inside China, she said. Video views increased eightfold at the time, including clicks from Wuhan, Fang said. One Ipsos poll conducted (new window) for RFA in 2018 suggested as many as 44 million people a week may have accessed its content within China, about three per cent of its population. A Gallup survey commissioned by the service in 2023 found that almost three-quarters of Cambodians surveyed were aware of RFA, and 8.5 per cent saw its work on a weekly basis. When we were created, it was with the understanding that having an educated citizenry in these different countries supporting democratic values would actually lead to awareness that is beneficial to U.S. interests, Fang said. Reporters share their stories A few remaining reporters were working on stories last week in the near-vacant newsroom in downtown Washington. One involved a bullet-train project (new window) in Vietnam — with a look at (new window) a sole-source contract and questions about oversight (new window) . Others touched on struggling tariff talks (new window) ; a journalist arrested (new window) in Cambodia; and a Cambodian official telling Japan to avoid raising human rights during a political summit. A few days earlier, there was an unusual story about a Cambodian police officer charged with drunk-driving (new window) . The arrest came after RFA posted an extraordinary crash video that drew millions of views and attention to the case. We made that big, said Poly Sam, director of the Cambodian service, himself a survivor of ghastly violence (new window) under the Khmer Rouge. During a work pause, the few remaining reporters discussed their own personal stories. Vuthy Tha is a single father of two young children, from Cambodia. He described threats from Cambodian officials, including from a cabinet minister and a spokesman for the governing party. We know where you live, he recalled the spokesman telling him when he was in hiding in Thailand. Some time after, he saw someone standing outside filming his home. Asked what would happen to his kids if he's deported, Tha said he hopes co-workers might care for them. His colleague Hum just became a dad last month. In the weeks before the birth, Hum had been worrying he'd lose his job and with it, his health coverage. When the baby arrived March 26, and Hum still had his job, he took it as a sign and named the baby Lucky. Khoa Lai of the Vietnamese service said he arrived in the U.S. months ago, hopeful that, here, he could write without fear, unlike in his home country, where he still uses a pseudonym for some reporting. I think it is a phase, he said of the recent moves against organizations like RFA. I think it will pass soon. At the end of the day, I think America is still a country of freedom. Alexander Panetta (new window) · CBC News
NHK
23-05-2025
- Business
- NHK
Radio Free Asia silenced by Trump's spending cuts
Washington-based news outlet Radio Free Asia is an empty shell these days. The journalists are gone, their laptops and cameras jettisoned on desks stripped of all purpose. For decades, they've delivered uncensored information to millions of people living under oppressive regimes in Asia. But in March, US President Donald Trump cut funding to all broadcasters operated by the Agency for Global Media, leaving RFA's future hanging in the balance. "It's really silent, not like the newsroom used to be," says RFA President Bay Fang. "It was a really sad day when everyone was gathering up their belongings." According to Fang, about 75 percent of the organization's 300 or so staff members in the United States have been furloughed. Broadcasts in nine languages are down from about 63 hours per day to seven. Bay Fang, left, Radio Free Asia president, shows NHK World through its emptied-out headquarters in Washington DC. Congress created RFA following the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in China. The outlet has since earned global acclaim for uncovering a string of alleged human rights abuses, including China's reeducation camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. "The idea is to actually just broadcast, not propaganda, not any kind of messaging to these different populations around Asia, but actually to give access to the truth," says Fang. RFA broadcasts in nine languages. Taxpayers 'off the hook' But Trump takes a different view. His administration says the funding cut will ensure taxpayers are "no longer on the hook for radical propaganda." Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, was equally dismissive about the affected media outlets, which include Voice of America ― the largest international broadcaster in the United States. "Nobody listens to them anymore," he said. Fang, on the other hand, insists millions are still tuned in. "You only have to look at how countries like China, Cambodia or Vietnam, the dictators that run these countries, are celebrating the decision to defund RFA." RFA chief Bay Fang spoke to NHK World in April. The Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, has described US government-funded media as a "lie factory." And former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen maintains Trump's cuts will eliminate the "fake news" coming out of a "propaganda machine." Tibetans lose key voice RFA is one of the few outlets that can reach people in the Tibet Autonomous Region via shortwave transmission. Broadcasts used to run for about five hours per day. But now, it's more like 20 minutes. "Despite China trying to jam signals and confiscate satellites, Tibetans continue to listen secretly," says service director Tenzin Pema. "They go to the rooftops or even mountaintops to listen. It's a ritual that has sustained them for so many years. And it's a ritual that has now unfortunately been silenced." Tenzin Pema, RFA's Tibetan service director "For many, they've always looked to their American broadcasts from independent media organizations as a way to understand that the international community has not forgotten them. It has provided them hope for a future that is free. But now, this is being seen as symbolic of the fact that they are actually forgotten." People across Washington are lamenting the funding cuts. They include Michael Sobolik, a Senior Fellow at leading think tank Hudson Institute, who previously served as a congressional staffer in the Senate. Sobolik says he relied on RFA's reporting when collecting facts about China. And he calls the Trump administration's decision a "self-imposed mistake." "I think RFA became collateral damage in a broader effort to take out the waste of Voice of America," he says. "There were some concerns about politicized opinion, politicized reporting. But the problem with how the administration went about it was taking the good out with the bad." Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Michael Sobolik speaks to NHK World. Regimes fill the void Sobolik warns other nations are rushing to fill the empty air waves with their own narratives. "The message that China is pushing right now is that the US can't be trusted ― that we're capricious, that we act on a whim," he says. Sobolik says RFA was one of the strongest elements in a "containment mechanism" against Beijing, because "every authoritarian regime is afraid of the truth." On April 22, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from dismantling three organizations operated by the Agency for Global Media: Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and Radio Free Asia. Still, RFA is yet to receive any funding and it may be forced to lay off most of its remaining employees. Work visas could be next on the chopping block. And deported journalists could suddenly face persecution from the regimes they've been holding to account.
