A top US senator introduced legislation yesterday aimed at boosting US-based Radio Free Asia (RFA), citing disappointment at the pace of democratic reforms in key target countries. “Certain governments still believe in blocking uncensored news from their citizens,” Senator Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. On the eve of the 14th anniversary of RFA’s creation, Lugar unveiled a bill that would provide long-term budget authority for RFA, rather than obliging lawmakers to take up the matter annually.

The US Congress created RFA in 1996 to broadcast news into Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, North Korea, Tibet and Vietnam, hoping that those countries would pursue democratic reforms and ease media censorship as they prospered. “However, these reforms never materialized,” Lugar’s office said in a statement that highlighted findings by the anti-censorship non-governmental organization Freedom House.

RFA can still only reach most of its audiences via shortwave radio and the Internet on proxy sites, according to Freedom House. Governments routinely jam AM radio transmissions and hack into RFA’s websites and servers, it said. “Permanent legal authority for Radio Free Asia would send a strong signal that the US supports freedom of the press across the globe,” said Senator Lugar.
(Source: AFP/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)