New York (AP) – America’s voice cannot yet be silenced.
On Friday, a federal judge hired the Trump government’s efforts to reduce the international intelligence service financed by the US government and to describe the “classic case of arbitrary and moody decision-making”.
Judge James Paul Oetken blocked the US Agency for Global Media, which operates Voice of America, of more than 1,200 journalists, engineers and other employees who ordered it two weeks after President Donald Trump’s chair and accelerated his financing.
Oetken has enacted a momentary injunction that the agency of “any attempt to terminate employees or contractors to terminate, reduce, terminate on vacation, on vacation or on vacation”, to close the offices or to oblige the employees to return to the USA
The order also prohibits the agency for global media to finish grant financing for its other shipment companies, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Afghanistan. The agency said on Thursday that the financing of Radio Free Europe restored after a judge in Washington, DC, ordered this for it.
“This is a crucial victory for freedom of the press and the first change and a sharp reproduction” for the Trump government “complete disregard for the principles that define our democracy,” said the lawyer of the plaintiff Andrew G. Celli Jr.
The approach of the Trump government is criticized
At a hearing on Friday in Manhattan, Oetken was responsible for “bringing a shelter to an agency that was legally approved and financed by the congress”.
The judge criticized the management of the agency, including the special consultant Kari Lake, for drawing the plug “apparently overnight” to the global megaphone of the US government without taking into account the effects.
According to a coalition of journalists from Voice of America, unions and reporters of non -profit journalism interest, Oetken ruled the Trump administration without limits last week to block the cuts. Ultimately, they try to return the VOA into the air.
The plaintiffs argued that the closure against the establishment of a court in Trump’s first term against the VOA journalists falls against a freen-free firewall in front of the White House in front of the White House. Their absence of the air waves has left a vacuum that “propagandists whose messages monopolize global air waves,” said the plaintiffs.
Trump and other Republicans have accused Voice of America of a “left bias” and not projected “Pro -American” values to his global audience, although it is prescribed by Congress as an impartial news organization.
Voice of America left the air out of the air, shortly after Trump had issued an executive order on March 14, the agency for global media and six other non -related federal companies – part of its campaign to reduce the government and to align with its political agenda. It was also moved this month to end VOA contracts with news agencies, including the Associated Press.
The White House called the “The Voice of Radical America” service and said that Trump’s command would “make sure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”. It quoted the reporting that it was “too cheap” for the former President Joe Biden, as well as stories about white privileges, racial profiles and transgender migrants who are looking for asylum.
The congress has acquired almost 860 million US dollars for the agency for global media for the current financial year.
Additional complaints are still pending
Three federal lawsuits in Washington, DC, question other aspects of the cuts, including one who was brought by Voice of America’s Director and three journalists. Oetken said that he would later rule the government’s request to postpone his case there.
The Voice of America has put into authoritarian countries that have no free press since the Second World War. It began as a counterpoint to the Nazi propaganda and played an outstanding role in the efforts of the US government to contain the spread of communism.
According to the lawsuit, the Voice of America employees were instructed on March 15 to complete their live programs and then to clear the building. Shortly afterwards you lost access to agency computer systems, including e -mails. The Voice of America website has not been updated since then.
Lake, a former TV news anchor and political candidate, said she found out how many people are necessary to operate some of these outlets on the legally permissible minimum personnel.
Some people were brought back to work and at least one service – Radio Marti in Cuba – has returned to the air, said Lake in an interview that was released on X. on Thursday.
“We’ll get a complaint,” said Lake. “This is just a parliament for the course. We were victims – President Trump, I have myself – of” right
Lake, who repeats the complaints of the White House, said: “We want to make sure these agencies are in harmony with those who are our American values. We tell America’s history. We don’t tell the stories of our opponents.”
“From God,” she said, “we won’t turn out the anti -American garbage.”
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The media author of Associated Press, David Bauder, contributed to this report.
