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AZG DAILY #23, 12-02-2009

RADIO LIBERTY (RFE/RL) BETRAYS ITS IDEALS

Hakob Tsulikian

During the last few weeks, almost 20 American web sites and blogs published Armenian journalist Anna Karapetian’s "Open Letter to Human Rights and Freedom of Press International Organizations". The commentaries on the letter and the letter itself appeared on the Internet pages of such influential newspapers as the New York Times and USA Today.

Reflecting on the "Open Letter", the editor of FreeMediaOnline.org blog Ted Lipien says, the Armenian journalist Anna Karapetian hopes that the Obama Administration’s plans will include the protection of the very elementary labor rights of the foreign employees working in the Prague headquarters of RFE/RL, which is known as a defender of human rights and freedom of speech. Despite the fact that RFE/RL is registered as a private organization, it is led by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which is appointed by the US President and confirmed by the Senate. Moreover, the Secretary of State is an ex officio BBG member. This means that since January the 20th, Barack Obama’s ideological partner Hillary Clinton has been a part of the policymaking process regarding U.S. International Broadcasting.

Anna Karapetian’s "Open Letter" has attracted the attention of American Media because RFE/RL, being funded by the U.S. Congress with the mission to spread democratic values, flagrantly violates the very same values by discriminating against its non-American employees.  These are mostly journalists who are invited from former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other target countries. RFE/RL propagates democratic values for these undemocratic or transitional countries with the voices of the same journalists, who themselves have zero legal protection.

Here is what Anna Karapetian writes in her "Open Letter": "Signing  a standardized Employment Agreement  "governed by the applicable laws of the United States, the laws of the District of Columbia or the Policies of the Company", the non-American journalists trustfully and proudly place themselves under the protective hand of RFE/RL, a beacon of human rights. In reality, however, they obtain about as much legal protection as the inhabitants of Guantanamo: not in the country of their origin, not in the host country, Czech Republic, and not in the United States"

The management of the Radios indeed knows that from 1991 the foreigners working for an American employer abroad are expressly, specifically exempt from the protection provided to Americans by EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), and that Federal Civil Rights Act, as well as the 1977 District of Columbia Human Rights Act being subordinate to US federal legislation, also exclude them from legal protection.

Mother of three minors, Anna Karapetian, only after being arbitrarily separated from the Radios after almost 12 years of employment, discovered that she and more than 150 of her non-American colleagues are exempt from the protection provided to Americans by EEOC, and are also not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, by the Equal Pay Act, by the Disabilities Act, by the Family and Medical Leave Act. How then could RFE/RL offer them such a contract, knowing that non-Americans cannot appeal to American courts? Formally, RFE/RL management was able to do that because the Czech Republic still has some regulations dating back to the Communist era, which allow foreign companies to use foreign labor laws if they don’t contradict the fundamentals of the "Czechoslovak Socialist Republic".

"In such a legal chaos, the small "tsars" of the Radios took advantage using the larceny of employment agreements. It appears that at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters the non-American employees, mainly broadcasters and editors, are as unprotected against arbitrary decisions and discrimination as their colleagues in the countries to which the Radios broadcast, such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan are. The methods are different but the results are virtually the same. In RFE/RL target countries, the journalists are harassed, persecuted and forced into silence. At the RFE/RL main office in Prague, they are harassed and separated  from the Radios and thus forced into silence. As a result, in both cases their listeners are barred from the familiar voices they used to trust. RFE/RL "explains" it’s policy with the "philosophy of  employment-at-will", which in America is less fancy nick-named as "employment-at-whim".  According to that doctrine the employer can fire anyone, anytime with no reason.  The difference is that the American employees are able to protect their rights in U.S. courts, while the non-Americans are denied that right.  At the end, one should not be surprised that several target countries, one after another, are banning RFE/RL programs on their national frequencies. The behavior of the Radios towards its employees, in fact, is being followed as an example in those countries whose authoritarian governments also act by the philosophy of "at - will or at-whim", comments Anna Karapetian.

Ted Lipien, the author of the commentary on FreeMediaOnline, writes: "Legal cases against RFE/RL’s employment practices have been filed by the dismissed employees with the Czech Supreme Court,  the Czech Constitutional Court, and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg… In yet another major embarrassment for the BBG, one of the most respected world statesmen, former Czech president and human rights activist Vaclav Havel, promised to personally monitor the cases of the fired employees. The PR problem created by these cases and the damage to America’s image abroad can be traced back to the actions of a relatively small group of unelected U.S. government officials".

The plaintiffs, two foreign female employees, are suing RFE/RL for violations of their labor, civil and human (national equality)  rights, resulting from the violation of legal sovereignty of the Czech Republic by RFE/RL. The conclusion is evident: these legal cases are a stamp of shame, a stigma on the history of the well-respected Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has supported democracy for decades. Regardless of what the results of the court cases will be, the serious and substantiated charges against RFE/RL are already a tremendous  blow to the reputation and the prestige of an institution with a glorious history.