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American justice is opposed to the resumption of antenna of Voice of America that Trump wants to dismantle

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A judgment of a Washington Court of Appeal-by two votes of magistrates against one-canceled first instance decisions of judges from the capital and New York, in March and April, which had refuted to a White House prescription demanding the suspension of the distribution of VOA.

One of VOA’s historic journalists, Steve Herman, chief of the United States and ex-reporters to the White House, published on X the judgment of the Court of Appeal and estimated that “VOA journalists return to work on Monday” May, as they thought.

The new boss of USAGM, federal organization supervising several American public media, Kari Lake, an ultra -preseer politician very close to Donald Trump, praised a “big judicial victory on X […] And a huge victory for the president “of the United States.

A few hours earlier, however, lawyers from the French organization Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) and VOA (had) learned by an email from the Ministry of Justice “that the teams of this emblematic media of the US external audiovisual would be able to resume work in the coming hours”, had rejoiced RSF.

According to this message, “the accounts of 1,406 USAGM and VOA employees and contract workers were reactivated” for a “return of 14 programs next week”.

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In mid-March, the Trump administration had put on journalists on leave and started to fire some in VOA, as well as in other public media.

“Going out VOA from a coma will ask for time and a Herculean effort to restore our services in nearly 50 languages ​​and try to find our 340 million listeners before the antenna suspension,” warned Mr. Herman, before the decision of the Court of Appeal.

The director of RSF Thibaut Bruttin also called “to prudence” in the face of the “erratic path of the Trump administration” and claimed that “guarantees be provided on the sustainability of funding allocated by the American Congress to the whole of the USAGM media”.

Voice of America, which can be compared to the services abroad of the BBC or RFI, was created during the Second World War.

With Radio Free Europe, born in the middle of the Cold War, and Radio Free Asia, created in 1996, these radios carry “the voice of America” ​​around the world, especially in countries directed by authoritarian regimes.

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