Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s latest request for a temporary restraining order in its lawsuit against the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
In his ruling, Judge Royce Lamberth ordered USAGM to immediately disburse approximately $12 million in RFE/RL’s congressionally appropriated funds for the month of April.
The court concluded that USAGM’s refusal to disburse the funds under the same terms as March’s payment was “arbitrary and capricious.” It also rejected that USAGM could withhold funding until RFE/RL signed a “radically different grant agreement.”
Lamberth noted that RFE/RL had terminated nearly all of its contracts with freelance journalists, missed lease payments and furloughed approximately 120 employees.
“An organization can only survive so many rounds of missed payments, broken contracts and lost employees before it is gone for good,” Lamberth wrote in the ruling.
[Related: “RFE/RL Begins Layoffs”]
RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said the organization hopes to receive the overdue April payment quickly. “Every day that USAGM withholds money further endangers our journalists, including four who are currently in prison,” Capus said in a release.
He added that RFE/RL will remain in court and looks forward to working with USAGM to ensure payments for the remainder of the fiscal year.
RFE/RL originally filed a lawsuit in March against the USAGM for blocking the termination of its federal grant.
Radio Free Europe began broadcasting to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria in 1950. Radio Liberty followed in 1953, targeting the Soviet Union. The international broadcaster is a private, nonprofit organization incorporated in Delaware.
Meanwhile, USAGM is a federal agency that administers grants supporting the United States’ international broadcasting efforts.
Radio World has reached out to USAGM for further comment.
