WASHINGTON – Today, Radio Free Asia (RFA) President and CEO Bay Fang welcomed the ruling of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to grant a preliminary injunction, requiring the U.S. Agency for Global Media to disburse Congressionally appropriated funds to RFA. Following the termination of its grant by the USAGM, more than three quarters of RFA’s U.S.-based staff have been furloughed and almost all contracts ended with overseas freelance journalists. Fang issued the following statement:
“We welcome the ruling that USAGM must continue to fund RFA, as Congress intended. It’s now up to the U.S. Agency for Global Media to release RFA’s Congressional funding.
“While we want to resume our operations as they were before, for that to happen we need to receive timely disbursement of our funding on a consistent basis. Until then RFA unfortunately remains in the same position as last month when we began to furlough our journalists and staff.”
