The Voice of America, the official U.S. government broadcaster, has notified three employees of its Chinese language division that it plans to fire them for conducting a controversial interview with a Chinese dissident.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, the three workers, Sasha Gong, Fred Wang, and Robert Li, were notified in letters Nov. 3 that the radio planned to seek their dismissal, allegedly for insubordination and violating the radio's reporting rules.
Four VOA employees were suspended in April amid Chinese government pressure on VOA and the State Department to cancel a live interview with Guo Wengui, an exiled billionaire living in New York who has been targeted by China in a bid to silence his disclosures of high-level corruption and intelligence activities.
The three-hour live interview with Guo was cut short after one hour and twenty minutes on orders from senior VOA leaders.
Gong, who was chief of VOA's China division, said those facing dismissal will appeal the decision.
"VOA cited ‘insubordination' as the reason to fire me," she told the Free Beacon. "There are two facts they never mention. One, my interview plan was approved by the management. It was the management who wanted to change the plan under the pressure of the Chinese government."
"I firmly believe that the VOA management caved into the pressure of the Chinese government," Gong said. "It is absurd that Voice of America, a federal agency, would listen to Beijing, and join forces with the Chinese communists to persecute journalists."
Gong also said the Chinese government is determined to prevent Guo from speaking out.
"For years, China has launched a war against our press freedom by blocking dissidents' voices from America, and by threatening whoever spoke out against the regime," she said. "I, together with my excellent colleagues, have become a casualty of that war. It is unfortunate but to me our First Amendment is worth fighting for."
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