Human Rights Watch calls for continuing VOA broadcasts to China

In a testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sophie Richardson, the advocacy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division who oversees the organization’s work on China, urged the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress to continue Voice of America radio and TV broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese, which the Broadcasting Board of Governors wants to terminate. Ms. Richardson told members of the committee that the US should “maintain funding not only for Tibetan language programs for RFA and VOA, but also for the Mandarin, Cantonese, and Uighur services; these are irreplaceable means of transmitting information into and out of all regions of China.”