March 16, Pozirk. “The Iranian Ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate” if the US stops funding the international Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, its president and CEO Stephen Capus said.
The statement comes after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to cut several federal agencies, including the US Agency for Global Media, which supervises RFE/RL.
According to RFE/RL‘s Belarus Service, Capus said canceling financial support would be a “massive gift to America’s enemies.”
“Handing our adversaries a win would make them stronger and America weaker,” he stated.
“We’ve benefitted from strong bipartisan support throughout RFE/RL‘s storied history. 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,” Capus said.
The Americans launched RFE in 1950 to broadcast independent information to Soviet satellite states and RL in 1953 to cover the Soviet Union.
The Belarusian Service, known locally as Radyjo Svaboda, went live in 1954.
Because of the 2020 unrest, the Belarusian government has deemed it an extremist group and persecuted some of its journalists.
