After hundreds of Radio Free Asia staff placed on leave, some fear deportation
Washington — Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Congress created the government-funded Radio Free Asia to broadcast facts into countries where governments are afraid of them.
"The U.S. saw China gunning down its own citizens and then also successfully covering it up afterwards," RFA President Bay Fang told CBS News. "The U.S. Congress created us with an eye to giving these people in China and other authoritarian countries around Asia the ability to have free press, to get access to the truth through an unbiased news service."
Fang put 75% of RFA staff on leave Friday, the result of funding cuts ordered by Kari Lake, senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of RFA and Voice of America, the nation's largest international broadcaster.
Last weekend, all full-time employees and contractors with VOA were informed they were being placed on administrative leave, while Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were notified that federal grants for both broadcasters had been terminated.
"USAGM and the outlets it oversees will be reduced to their statutory functions and associated personnel will be reduced to the minimum presence and function required by law," the agency said in a March 15 statement.
Lake, a former television broadcaster who ran unsuccessful Republican governor and Senate campaigns in Arizona, had been initially tapped by President Trump to serve as VOA director before taking on the role of senior adviser to USAGM.
RFA had a full-time staff of about 400 people prior to the layoffs, according to its website. It also had another approximately 500 stringers and contractors.
At least eight RFA journalists could be forced to leave the U.S. if they lose their work visas. Vietnamese journalist Khoa Lai is one of them and fears the possibility of being deported.
"I believe so, but I hope not," Lai said. "I believe that if I go back, then the government will snatch me right away."
Five people who worked for RFA are already behind bars overseas. RFA funds their families and their legal defense.
"These are not U.S. citizens, but they are people who are in jail because they worked for a U.S.- funded network," Fang said.
RFA's stated mission is to provide fair, objective and uncensored news and information to Asian nations where there are few, if any, free speech protections.
"We're worth saving because we actually bring benefit to the U.S. taxpayer," Fang said. "I think it is in the U.S. national security interest to have something like us. We are actually one of the lowest cost-effective elements of soft power that they could have."
RFA told CBS News that unless the courts, Congress or a private financier steps in, it only has enough money to continue broadcasting for approximately one more month. On Friday, meanwhile, a group of VOA employees filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to be reinstated.
