(Washington) A federal judge temporarily blocked layoffs against more than 500 employees of the highly respected American Radio Voice of America (VOA), accused by the Trump administration of a left -handed bias.
In his judgment consulted by AFP, the federal judge Royce Lamberth decided that dismissals, which were to become effective on Tuesday, were “suspended” should not “be applied” until a final judgment.
The magistrate argues that the Trump administration did not comply with the obligations of the government agency in charge of public media, the USAGM, the supervisory authority of VOA.
The administration “sought to save time,” deplored the judge again.
In April, Royce Lamberth asked the administration to restore the coverage of VOA so that it could comply with its legal obligations which require it to disseminate “reliable and authority” information.
Despite this injunction, Kari Lake, a former presenter of a local television in Arizona, a fervent support of Donald Trump and who became an administrator of the USAGM, had put contractual personnel on administrative leaves that form most of VOA’s non -English -speaking services.
In August, she made the dismissal of 532 full-time journalists from the radio.
In the past, diffusing in 49 languages, VOA now produces content only in four languages: Mandarin, Dari, Pachto and Farsi and only about an hour per day.
Voice of America radio was created during the Second World War.
Alongside Radio Free Europe, launched during the Cold War, and Radio Free Asia, created in 1996, it was intended to carry the “Voice of America” around the world and especially in authoritarian countries.
But President Donald Trump signed a decree in March classifying the USAGM agency, which had more than 3000 employees in 2023, among the “unnecessary elements of the federal bureaucracy”.
He accused VOA of a supposed left of the left and dissemination of anti -American messages.
