10 Sep 2025 | Americas, Asia and Pacific, Burma, Cambodia, News, United States, Vietnam, Volume 54.02 Summer 2025
This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 2 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled Land of the Free?: Trump’s war on speech at home and abroad, published on 21 July 2025. Read more about the issue here.
Kyaw Min Htun, a Burmese editor and reporter, moved from his home in Myanmar to the USA more than 20 years ago, seeking a place where he could finally report freely. For two decades, the USA provided that, allowing him to secure various roles at Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is based in Washington DC. On 15 March, however, that all changed.
Alongside about 75% of his US-based colleagues, Htun was told not to go into work. His job was one of thousands of casualties of president Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to government-backed initiatives.
“Our hands are tied and we cannot do our jobs,” Htun, who was deputy director of RFA when he was furloughed, told Index.
At the beginning of May, RFA announced it would be terminating the contracts of more than 90% of its US-based staff and shutting down several language services. Days later, this move was delayed due to an administrative stay from the courts.
On 14 March, Trump had signed an executive order to stop federal funding to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees US-funded international media. It came amid a broader assessment by the State Department of all overseas spending that has so far led to the termination of the country’s support for more than 80% of the global aid projects it had backed.
USAGM financially supports RFA and other media platforms including Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Its aim – since its inception with VOA in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda as a form of soft power – has always been “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy”. Collectively, USAGM outlets have created news in 64 languages, reaching 427 million people each week.
In many countries, such outlets are a lifeline, offering a window into what’s happening at home and abroad amid wars and famines, disasters and conflicts.
RFA – which was broadcasting in nine languages in China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and North Korea – has been a fixture in Asia’s media landscape since 1996, when it was established to counter propaganda. It has won awards for covering under-reported issues, including the plight of North Korean escapees, the impact of the civil war in Myanmar and the treatment of the Uyghurs.
The Trump administration, however, sees VOA and RFA as “radical propaganda”, and what it calls “anti-Trump content”.
Elon Musk – the tech billionaire and, at the time, a senior adviser to the president – said on his social media platform X that RFA and RFE were made up of “radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1billion [a] year of US taxpayer money”.
While support for some outlets could resume amid several lawsuits that have been lodged against USAGM and the government, many are worried about the ramifications already being felt by journalists, citizens and democracy as a whole in Asia.
The fallout
Aleksandra Bielakowska, director of advocacy and assistance at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told Index that many of RFA’s regional reporters were journalists working in exile or underground in places such as Cambodia or Myanmar.
Journalists including Mech Dara, who exposed trafficking and scam compounds in Cambodia, and Sai Zaw Thaike, who reported on the mistreatment of inmates inside Myanmar prisons, are being persecuted by their governments. These journalists operate clandestinely to ensure stories from their countries are told, free from state influence.
The funding cut meant RFA had to sever the contracts of most of its local freelancers, exposing them in a region where press freedom is rapidly in decline. Myanmar, China, North Korea and Vietnam are among the top 10 worst countries for journalist safety. Last year, 20 journalists were killed in Asia (up from 12 in 2023) and 30% of global arrests of journalists took place on the continent.
Several efforts are being made to curtail media freedoms in countries across Southeast Asia in particular, said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Vietnam is one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists; in Tibet, the Chinese government forbids foreign media from entering; and in Hong Kong, since the adoption of Beijing’s National Security Law in 2020, many outlets have been forced to close and their journalists arrested on national security charges.
Bielakowska said there was currently little protection available for journalists in the region, and the situation could get worse when “authoritarian regimes […] don’t see any opposition from democratic countries”.
Certain authoritarian leaders celebrated the USA’s abandonment of such publications, said Lau. Cambodia’s leader Hun Sen praised Trump on Facebook for combating “fake news”, while Global Times, part of China’s state media, lauded the cuts, claiming “almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it”.
“This just tells you actually how impactful that reporting really was,” Lau said, adding that the US cuts had made the work of restricting media freedoms by these governments much easier.
“Press freedom is definitely on the retreat, and what comes in its place is never anything great,” said Rohit Mahajan, chief communications officer at RFA.
A lack of safety globally
Back in the USA, reporters’ jobs are at risk. RFA has put the majority of its staff in its headquarters on leave and VOA has had to furlough 1,300 staff, the majority of whom are journalists.
Washington-based Htun, although among those affected, considers himself lucky. With US citizenship – he sought political asylum in 2005 – he can remain in the country, but many of RFA’s team come from Asia and their US visas are reliant on their work status. For some, the prospect of returning home – potentially to a country such as Cambodia or China where they may have helped to highlight human rights abuses – is a dangerous one.
“With the current administration’s policies, it is very hard to say they are safe even if they apply for asylum here, because they could be denied any time and they could be deported,” said Htun. “This is an unprecedented, man-made disaster.”
Aside from the threat of deportation, the furloughed staff are now not earning and are scrambling to find work. They are among thousands in the capital who have lost their jobs since the wave of executive orders, which have seen other government departments closed or drastically reduced in size.
This means that competition for jobs is fierce, said Htun. The USAGM Employee Association is collating donations to support journalists affected.
Information black holes
Aside from the impact on the safety of journalists, the shuttering of these media platforms, or even just a reduction in their content, impacts the public, limiting information.
It creates a “black hole of information”, said Bielakowska, who added that this would certainly be the case in countries such as Laos and Tibet, which are more closed. In countries with strict authoritarian regimes, VOA and RFA are often the only accessible forms of information other than state-sponsored or heavily-censored media.
This will lead to “a dramatic turning off of a pipeline of accurate and independent news stories about what is happening within authoritarian states”, said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There isn’t as good a source in Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese, Tibetan as RFA. People will lose touch with the real world.”
Many in Myanmar – where a civil war has raged since 2021 and the military has shut down internet access in parts of the country – rely on shortwave radio for information on the war and wider events, such as the destructive earthquake in March. While the BBC and VOA are available, only a portion of their content focuses on Myanmar whereas 100% of RFA Burma’s content is focused on the country, said Htun. He explained that a content vacuum gave the Myanmar military junta an opportunity to exploit the situation by sharing their own propaganda and misinformation.
Samady Ou, an American-Cambodian activist and youth ambassador for Khmer Movement for Democracy, cannot go home to Cambodia because his democracy work has put a target on his back. He said that there was no reliable media outlet in the country without VOA and RFA.
“Right now, in Cambodia, we don’t have any news medium left that is independent and not pro-government,” he said. “When there’s unjust goings on like land grabs or Chinese big companies coming in taking away land, [Cambodians] have no voice at all.”
US pro-democracy organisation Freedom House ranks Cambodia as “not free” as a result of a “severely repressive environment” driven by the Cambodian People’s Party which “has maintained pressure on the opposition, independent press outlets and demonstrators with intimidation, politically motivated prosecutions and violence”.
Looking ahead
Experts hope the funding cut is only temporary and the USA will see the value in supporting regional media.
Historically, USAGM has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support from Congress across every administration, explained Mahajan, calling these platforms “unique tools in America’s soft power”.
Most USAID funding in Asia has been directed towards peace and security projects, indicating that this has historically been a vested interest for the USA.
“I think there’s a consensus inside of the Congress, even right now, that China and authoritarian regimes are one of the biggest challenges of the USA, and without the right information, freedom of the press and access to reliable information, we’ll have no updates about these countries, and these countries will also manage to spread their model of information inside of Asia, which is a direct threat to the USA itself,” said Bielakowska. Whether the new administration can be convinced of this is yet to be seen.
In the meantime, RFA has filed a lawsuit, claiming the government is unlawfully withholding funds and that only Congress can fund or defund an organisation it has created.
“We are trying to keep RFA afloat as we pursue a legal challenge to the termination of our grant, which we believe is unlawful,” Mahajan said. RFE and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks have also filed lawsuits.
In April, the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted an injunction to restore funding to USAGM, but the government is yet to release the funds. Htun predicts that the legal process will wage on for months to come, potentially escalating to the Supreme Court.
“This drama could take longer than expected – probably two or three more months,” he said.
During that time, journalists will remain out of work and exposed while citizens across Asia will be far less informed.
But there is always a chance that other funders could be found for these media platforms.
“Other states and entities and private organisations could fill some of the gaps in funding for media outlets,” said Kurlantzick, who called on powerful countries in the region to stand up for media freedom by committing more funds.
Lau said it was in the interests of other concerned governments to have access to reliable information, as well as to the private sector operating in some of these countries.
Such is the public support for these media sources that Ou believes the public in Asian countries may also crowdfund to keep them functioning.
In the meantime, Bielakowska is confident that RFA and VOA are used to operating in fragile situations.
“Even with this blow, I still hope that they can continue working on the ground and find ways to support themselves.”
2 Jul 2025 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News, Newsletters
As I wrote the newsletter last week we were closely following events in Iran but didn’t have a full picture in terms of free speech ramifications, in part because of censorship itself – internet blackouts and media bans meant that information was slow to leave the country. One week on, it’s different. Many alarming stories have emerged.
The conflict between Israel and Iran was of course marked from the start by free speech violations – early on there was the bombing of Iranian state television. Then later there were strikes on Tehran’s Evin Prison. While these acts may have been intended as symbolic blows against key institutions of Iranian repression, the consequences were grimly real: media workers killed, political prisoners endangered. And in between? Lots of repression.
At Index, some developments were personal, including when our 2023 Arts Award winner – the rapper Toomaj Salehi – disappeared for three days. Beyond our immediate network, according to the Centre for Human Rights in Iran, more than 700 citizens have been arrested in the past 12 days, some for alleged “espionage” or “collaboration” with Israel. There have also been six executions on espionage charges carried out, with additional death sentences expected.
The Supreme Council of National Security announced that any action deemed supportive of Israel would be met with the most severe penalty: death. The scope was broad, ranging from “legitimising the Zionist regime” to “spreading false information” or “sowing division”.
As mentioned above, Iran also began restricting internet access before shutting down access altogether. Officials claimed the blackout was necessary to disrupt Israeli drone operations allegedly controlled through local SIM-based networks. The result: ordinary Iranians were cut off from vital news. International journalists from outfits like Deutsche Welle (DW) were banned from reporting inside Iran. The family of a UK-based journalist with Iran International TV was even detained in Tehran, in an attempt to force her resignation. Her father called her under duress, parroting instructions from security agents: “I’ve told you a thousand times to resign. What other consequences do you expect?”
Yet amid the bleakness, there have been a few positive instances. Iranian state media aired a patriotic song by Moein, a pop icon long exiled in Los Angeles. Some billboards replaced religious slogans with pre-Islamic imagery, such as the mythical figure Arash the Archer. There has also been an unexpected digital reprieve: on Wednesday, following the agreement of an Israel-Iran ceasefire deal brokered by the US administration the day before, Iranians reported unfiltered access to Instagram and WhatsApp for the first time in two years.
Given everything else it feels unlikely that this openness will last. This week’s proposals by Iran’s judiciary officials to expand espionage laws and increase the powers of Iran’s sprawling security apparatus imply as much, too. So while the world’s eyes might have moved away from Iran, our gaze is still there – documenting the free speech violations and campaigning for their end.
20 Jun 2025 | Cambodia, India, Iran, Israel, News, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, United Kingdom
In the age of online information, it can feel harder than ever to stay informed. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression. This week, we look at how Israel has targeted Iranian media in bombing strikes, and the state execution of a Saudi journalist.
Bombed live on broadcast: Israel strikes Iranian state media
In the early hours of Friday 13 June, Israel launched strikes against Iran which has since escalated into a larger conflict, with major population centres such as Tehran and Tel Aviv facing missile attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims the initial attack, dubbed Operation Rising Lion, was pre-emptive to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon which Israel believed was imminent – a claim that is not backed up by US intelligence. Beyond nuclear targets, Israeli missiles have targeted another facet of the Iranian state: the media.
On 16 June, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s (IRIB) TV channel was broadcasting live news coverage of the conflict when an explosion rocked the studio, forcing the presenter to flee and the broadcast to cut to pre-recorded bulletins. Israel had bombed the studio live on air in a direct attack on Iranian media. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz described the attack as a strike on the “propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority of the Iranian regime“, while an Israeli military spokesperson alleged that IRIB was aiding the Iranian military “under the cover of civilian assets and infrastructure“. Iranian officials described the attack as a war crime, while the head of IRIB Peyman Jebelli stated that the studio was damaged, but vowed that broadcasting would return. Local media reported that three members of staff were killed in the attack, including a senior news editor.
“High treason” or Twitter?: Saudi journalist executed after social media posts
On 14 June 2025, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced on X that it had carried out the death penalty on Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser, who stood accused of high treason and terrorism charges, in the first high-profile killing of a Saudi journalist since Jamal Khashoggi. But campaigners close to the case believe that the true reason for al-Jasser’s arrest and execution in 2018 was his posts made on X (then called Twitter).
Al-Jasser reportedly had two accounts: one under his real name, and a second, anonymous account that was critical of the Saudi government, accusing the Saudi royal family of corruption. The Saudi government is thought to have identified al-Jasser as someone involved with attempting to topple the government because of his posts; Saudi Arabia allegedly infiltrated Twitter’s databases to access information about anonymous users in 2014 and 2015, and could have identified Al-Jasser using a similar method. It has been reported that Al-Jasser, who founded the news website Al-Mashhad Al-Saudi (The Saudi Scene), was tortured during his seven-year detention.
Changing views: Reforms to freedom of expression on UK campuses
The university campus is often considered a battleground for free speech, with conflicting ideals constantly in debate and student protests making national news. Universities are often caught between supporting staff or students, and are frequently criticised for giving or denying controversial speakers a platform.
Following some high-profile incidents, universities have asked for clarity. Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor at the University of Sussex, resigned in 2021 following protests on campus regarding her gender-critical views, for example. The Office for Students (OfS) fined the university £585,000 for the poor handling of her case and failing to uphold free speech.
A set of new OfS guidelines are intended to provide clear advice on what is permitted and what is not. In the guidelines, the OfS has ruled that universities in England will no longer be able to enforce blanket bans on student protests. This follows a wave of pro-Palestine student protests, with encampments appearing on university grounds across the country. Some universities have looked to prohibit such demonstrations, as Cambridge University did when a court ruled to block any further Israel-Palestine protests until the end of July.
The OfS guidelines also address the protection of viewpoints by staff and students that some may find offensive. Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at OfS, stated that students “have to accept that other people will have views that you find uncomfortable” when attending university. The guidelines come into effect in UK universities on 1 August.
No more soap operas: Cambodia bans Thai TV in border dispute
Since a clash at a disputed border area between Cambodia and Thailand claimed the life of a Cambodian soldier on 28 May, the two southeast Asian nations have seen tensions escalate. Each side blamed the other for the skirmish, which has resulted in an increased armed presence at the border and the introduction of retaliatory measures by both governments. With neither side looking to back down, the Cambodian government has taken a further step to sever ties with its neighbour by banning Thai TV and movies from being shown in Cambodia.
The ban also includes a boycott of any Thai internet links; a move that Cambodia’s minister of post and telecommunication Chea Vandeth claimed would cost Thailand hundreds of millions of dollars. Every cinema in the country has been informed that import and screening of Thai films is strictly prohibited as of 13 June, and Thai TV broadcasts – such as Thai soap operas, which are especially popular in Cambodia – must be replaced with Chinese, Korean or Cambodian dramas. Tensions continue to rise, and Cambodia instituted a ban on Thai fruit imports on Tuesday.
Citizen journalism under fire: Government of Jammu and Kashmir has YouTubers and online content creators in their sights
The government of Jammu and Kashmir has issued an order targeting those it deems to be “impersonating journalists”, including content creators on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The order restricts speech vaguely defined as “provocative” or “false” content, and content creators reporting on political affairs in the region could be classified as “impersonating a journalist”. The order comes with significant legal threats such as fines, imprisonment and the confiscation of electronic devices, allowing for anyone deemed to be “disrupting public order” to face consequences.
Threats to free speech in Jammu and Kashmir have been prevalent since a deadly terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir in April claimed 26 lives. Journalist Rakesh Sharma was physically assaulted while covering a protest in Jammu and Kashmir, and following the terrorist attack, the Indian government implemented widespread digital censorship on Pakistani and Muslim content on social media. With the new order, it will be even harder for residents of Jammu and Kashmir to stay informed.
7 Dec 2023 | Chile, News, United States
It is oddly appropriate that Henry Kissinger should have died in the year that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1973 military coup in Chile — the cataclysmic overthrow of its democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, and the end of a fleeting attempt to create a socialist society without resorting to violence, a first in the history of revolutions.
As national security advisor to President Nixon, Kissinger ferociously opposed Allende and destabilized the Chilean government by every means possible. He considered that, were Chile’s peaceful movement for social and economic justice to succeed, American hegemony would suffer. He feared that the example might spread and affect the world balance of power.
And Kissinger not only fostered the ousting of a democratically elected foreign leader, he subsequently supported the murderous regime of General Augusto Pinochet, even as the dictatorship was massively violating the human rights of Chile’s citizens, most egregiously in the cruel and terrifying practice of “disappearing” opponents.
It is these desaparecidos whom I think about now, as Kissinger is feted by a shameless bipartisan Washington elite. All these years after the coup in Chile, 1,162 men and women are still unaccounted for. The contrast is telling and significant: Kissinger will have a memorable, almost regal, funeral, while the victims of his policies have yet to find a small place on Earth where they can be buried.
If my first thoughts, when I heard the news about Kissinger’s death, were filled with memories of my missing Chilean compatriots — several of them had been dear friends — soon enough a flood of other casualties came to mind: the countless dead, wounded and disappeared in Vietnam and Cambodia, in East Timor and Cyprus, Uruguay and Argentina. The Kurds Kissinger betrayed; the apartheid regime in South Africa he bolstered; the Bangladeshi dead he belittled.
I always dreamed that a day would come when Kissinger would stand in a court of law and answer for his crimes.
It almost happened. In May 2001, Kissinger was sojourning at the Ritz Hotel in Paris when he was summoned to appear before French Judge Roger Le Loire as a witness in the case of five French nationals who had been disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. Rather than take that occasion to explain himself and vindicate his reputation, Kissinger immediately fled France.
Nor was Paris the only city in which he was pursued. Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzón unsuccessfully requested that Interpol detain the former U.S. secretary of State to answer questions in the ongoing trial of Pinochet for human rights violations (the general was arrested in London but finally remanded to Chile, where he died, never convicted, in 2006).
Nor did Kissinger deign to respond to Argentine Judge Rodolfo Corral about the infamous and lethal U.S.-backed Operation Condor in Latin America, or to Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán about the murder of American citizen Charles Horman in the days just after the coup (a case that inspired the Costa Gavras film “Missing”).
And yet I nursed the impossible dream: Kissinger in the dock. Kissinger held accountable for so much suffering. A dream that vanished with his death.
The more reason for that trial to happen in the court of public opinion. The disappeared of Chile, the forgotten dead of all those nations Kissinger devastated with his “realpolitik,” are crying out for justice.
I do not wish that Kissinger may rest in peace. I hope, on the contrary, that the ghosts of those multitudes he damaged beyond repair will trouble his memory and haunt his history.
Whether that happens depends, of course, on us, the living, on the willingness of humanity, amid the din and deluge of praise and eulogies, to listen to the hushed, receding voices of Kissinger’s victims and vow never to forget.
This article was originally published by the LA Times and republished here with permission
