New York – The voice of America cannot be silenced yet.
A federal judge arrested on Friday the efforts of the Trump administration to dismantle the International News Service funded by the United States Government of eight decades, qualifying the measure to a “classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision making.”
Judge James Paul Oetken blocked the US agency for the global media, which is executed by Voice of America, from saying goodbye to more than 1,200 journalists, engineers and other personnel who set aside two weeks ago following President Donald Trump ordered his cut financing.
Oetken issued a temporary restriction order that prohibits the agency “any additional attempt to finish, reduce strength, place employees or license contractors”, and close any trade or require foreign employees to return to the United States
The order also prohibits the Global Media Agency to end subsidies financing for its other transmission media, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Afghanistan. The agency said Thursday that it was restoring Free Europe’s financing after a judge in Washington, DC, ordered him to do so.
“This is a decisive victory for freedom of the press and the first amendment, and a strong reprimand” for the “total contempt of the Trump administration for the principles that define our democracy,” said the lawyer of the plaintiffs, Andrew G. Celli Jr.
At a audience on Friday in Manhattan, Oetken criticized the Trump administration for “taking a deck to an agency that has been authorized and funded by Congress.”
The judge criticized the leadership of the agency, including special advisor Kari Lake, for pulling the plug “apparently during the night” in the global megaphone and soft power of the US government. UU. Without considering the effects. “
Oetken ruled after a coalition of journalists from Voice of America, unions and the non -profit journalists of the reporters of the Journalism Defense Group without Borders demanded the Trump administration last week to block the cuts. Ultimately, they seek VOA to return to the air.
The plaintiffs argued that the closure violated a court during Trump’s first mandate that VOA journalists have a freedom of expression that protects them from the interference of the White House. Its absence of air waves has left a vacuum that is being covered by “propagandists whose messages will monopolize global waves,” said the plaintiffs.
Trump and other Republicans have accused Voice of America of a “leftist prejudice” and have not projected “pro -American” values to their world audience, despite the fact that Congress orders him to serve as a non -partisan news organization.
Voice of America left the air shortly after Trump issued an executive order on March 14 that reduced the funds to the Global Media Agency and six other unrelated federal entities, part of his campaign to reduce the government and align with his political agenda.
The White House called “La Voz de la Radical América” and said that Trump’s order “would ensure that taxpayers are no longer in the hook for radical propaganda.” He cited the coverage that said it was “too favorable” for former President Joe Biden, as well as stories about white privileges, racial profiles and transgender migrants looking for asylum.
The Congress has assigned almost $ 860 million for the Global Media Agency for the current fiscal year.
Three federal demands in Washington, DC, are challenging other aspects of the cuts, including one brought by the director of Voice of America and three journalists. Oetken said he will govern on a later date on the government’s request to move his case there.
Voice of America has operated since World War II, transmitting news in authoritarian countries that do not have a free press. It began as a counterpoint to Nazi propaganda and played an outstanding role in the efforts of the Cold War of the United States to stop the propagation of communism.
According to the demand, Voice of America employees were told to finish their live broadcasts on March 15, then vacate the building. Shortly after, said the demand, they lost access to the agency’s computer systems, including email. The Voice of America website has not been updated since then.
Lake, former television news presenter and political candidate, said he has been determining how many people should some of these points of sale operate at the minimum levels of personnel allowed by law.
Some people have been brought back to work and at least one service, Radio Marti in Cuba, has returned to the air, Lake told One America News Network in an interview published Thursday in X.
“Let’s get demands,” Lake said. “This is only for the course. We have been victims, President Trump, myself, myself, of ‘Law’. It is the same cast of characters trying to put terrestrial mines in the forms of each step of President Trump and this administration is trying to make this government again in line with where we can really pay it.”
Lake, who echoes the complaints of the White House, said: “We want to make sure these agencies are in line with what our US values are. We are telling the history of the United States. We are not telling the stories of our adversaries.”
“By God,” he said, “we are not going to get anti -American garbage.”
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The media writer of Associated Press, David Bauder, contributed to this report.
