U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) last week urged the Biden administration to prioritize the growing threats to U.S. international broadcasting at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
The RFE/RL mission is to promote democratic values and institutions and advance human rights by reporting the news in countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established, according to the news organization, which currently operates in 23 countries.
In Russia, RFE/RL journalists must compete with the autocratic Putin regime, which is stifling the flow of information, including by branding independent media organizations and their journalists as “foreign agents” and mandating certain labeling requirements, according to a Jan. 22 letter the members sent to President Joe Biden.
“RFE/RL, its corporate entity, its regional news sites, and its journalists have all been targeted by the repressive foreign agent law but have refused to label their content as “foreign-agent-produced” for fear it will discredit their work,” wrote the lawmakers, who also included U.S. Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), and Bill Keating (D-MA).
Most troublingly, according to their letter, is that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is threatening RFE/RL with significant fines and possible criminal charges against its employees. In fact, earlier this month, Russia’s Internet regulator Roskomnadzor announced it was levying hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines on RFE/RL for failing to label its content, the lawmakers wrote.
“Given the magnitude of the threat these new penalties pose to RFE/RL’s operations within Russia, we urge the Biden administration to engage the Russian government immediately to make clear that these restrictions on RFE/RL, its affiliates and its staff are unacceptable and, in particular, that exposing RFE/RL’s staff to criminal liability will be met with serious consequences,” wrote Rep. McCaul, Rep. Kinzinger, and their colleagues.
And in Belarus, where citizens have risen up against President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the dictator “has responded with a violent crackdown,” including on independent media and those working for RFE/RL.
“This is disappointing as the Belarusian opposition has asserted that the strongest weapon they have in their fight to determine their own future is access to accurate information,” the lawmakers wrote, calling on the Biden administration “to provide surge funding” for independent media’s work in Belarus.
Immediately restoring the integrity of RFE/RL and other independent networks, they wrote, “is urgently important to the United States’ efforts to promote democracy and human rights around the world and to counter the existential threat posed by the Putin regime to RFE/RL’s operations in Russia.”