BBG Watch
The independent NGO Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – cusib.org) has issued a statement on the passing of CUSIB Advisory Board member Robert Senser. As CUSIB member, Robert Senser successfully defended Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) broadcasts to China and Tibet from cuts contemplated by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a U.S. federal agency in charge of media outreach to countries without free press. The CUSIB announcement was issued by Executive Director Ann Noonan and Ted Lipien who is also one of the co-founders and supporters of BBG Watch.
Early in his career, Robert Senser was assistant editor of Work, published by the Catholic Council on Working Life in Chicago. He later worked as labor attaché in the Foreign Service in Algiers, Bonn, Brussels, and Saigon; and program director with the AFL-CIO’s Asian-American Free Labor Institute. After his retirement from Foreign Service, he worked pro bono on an AFL-CIO campaign that helped win the release of activist Harry Wu from a jail in China. In addition to CUSIB, he was also active in the Washington, D.C.-based Child Labor Coalition and the International Committee for Human Rights in Vietnam. He supported the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. His book “Justice at Work: Globalization and the Human Rights of Workers” was published in March 2009 and has served as a college textbook.
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CUSIB PRESS RELEASE
CUSIB Statement on the occasion of the passing of Advisory Board Member Robert Senser
CUSIB Executive Director Ann Noonan would like to share the following remarks about Mr. Robert Senser, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and CUSIB Advisory Board member, after hearing about his passing:
“CUSIB was blessed to have Robert Senser serve as Member of our Advisory Board. I was honored to meet Bob in the late 1990s during a Congressional Hearing about China’s brutal one-child policy. That afternoon, along with a small group of people, we joined Bob and Harry Wu at a nearby restaurant and I had a chance to speak with him about his work as a Catholic labor-rights advocate and labor rights expert in the U.S. Foreign Service, and about the work he had done to help Harry Wu and the Laogai Research Foundation. Through the years, we stayed in touch and Bob was always willing to offer advice, which included efforts to promote a human rights in China message during Pasadena’s 2008 Rose Parade.
When Ted Lipien and I formed CUSIB, Bob did not hesitate to accept our invitation to join our NGO. We were especially grateful to Robert Senser for lending his name to sign on to CUSIB letters to the U.S. Congress requesting their strong support to restore the funding in the FY2013 Budget for Voice of America (VOA) radio and television broadcasting to China and Tibet and for Voice of America (VOA) Spanish Broadcasts to Latin America.
While he will be greatly missed by his family and close friends, those of us who also had a chance to know Robert Senser realize that through knowing him, our lives were all enriched. May he rest in peace.”
Obituary for Robert Senser:
http://www.adamsgreen.com/book-of-memories/2203860/Senser-Robert/obituary.php
For further information, please contact:
Ann Noonan, co-founder and Executive Director
Tel. 646-251-6069
Ted Lipien, co-founder and Director
Tel. 415-793-1642
The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – cusib.org) is an independent, nongovernmental organization which supports free flow of uncensored news from the United States to countries without free media.