Trump cuts funding for US foreign broadcasters

Given the recent cutbacks by the Trump administration, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) calls on the incoming German government to advocate for EU investment to establish a pan-European foreign broadcaster to report on dictatorships. “The media outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia are providing irreplaceable information on the human rights situation in dictatorships, making a significant contribution to the public and politics in democratic states. If this reporting is removed, there will be even less means to counter the propaganda of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and others,” stated Hanno Schedler, STP expert on genocide prevention and the Responsibility to Protect.

“Dictatorships such as China are spending more and more money on a sanitized and multilingual news coverage. The EU must counter this! If the CDU and SPD are serious about a coordinated European foreign and security policy, they should seize the opportunity and advocate for the establishment of a new European media broadcaster that also employs Uyghur and Tibetan native speakers,” Schedler demanded.

With regard to the Chinese crimes against the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols, the broadcasters Radio Free Asia and Voice of America are a source for reports about regions on China’s periphery – in various languages and based on profound knowledge of the country and its languages. “Tibetan people living outside of Tibet are able to use US foreign broadcasters to gather extensive information on the situation in their former homeland – in Tibetan. If these sources of information break down, the bond between Tibet and the Tibetan diaspora will suffer as well,” the human rights advocate said. “Uyghur journalists from Radio Free Asia published shocking information about the situation in East Turkestan. Alongside reports from survivors, researchers, and committed politicians, it was Voice of America and Radio Free Asia that helped to reveal the full extent of the problems. Europe has an ethical obligation and a self-interest in receiving information on China that does not come from the Chinese government – providing a better basis for security policy decisions.”