8 hours agoCourt blocks Trump's attempts to stop Voice of America
Periskopi(a year ago)
(a year ago)A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's efforts to halt the operation of the American international broadcaster Voice of America, calling the move a classic “rast of arbitrary decision making”. Judge James Paul Oetken blocked the American Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which leads the Voice of America from dismissing more than 1200 journalists, [...]
Judge James Paul Oetken blocked the American Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which led the Voice of America, from dismissing more than 1,200 journalists, engineers and other staffs that it expelled two weeks ago after President Donald Trump ordered its funding cut.
It becomes known that Oetken issued a temporary restraining order banning the agency from “any further attempts to shut down, reduce power, put down” employees or contractors, and from closing any office or to ask employees abroad to return to the US, writes euronewsFollow Periscope.
“This is a decisive victory for the freedom of the press and First Amendment, and a stern rebuke to the administration's full disregard for the principles that define our democracy”, said lawyer Andrew G. Cecil Jr.
Oetken decided after a coalition of American Voice journalists, labour unions and the non-profit group of Reporters Without Borders indicted the Trump administration last week to block the cuts.
After all, they demand that the Voice of America be turned into a broadcast.
Otherwise, Trump and other Republicans have accused the Voice of America of a “left” prejudice and failure to design “pro-American values” for its worldwide audience, even though it is mandated by Congress to serve as a non-party news organization.
