{"id":1403296,"date":"2022-03-27T16:59:57","date_gmt":"2022-03-27T20:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1403296"},"modified":"2022-03-27T17:00:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-27T21:00:01","slug":"exclusive-watchdog-sues-voice-of-america-news-for-alleged-anti-american-pro-islamist-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-watchdog-sues-voice-of-america-news-for-alleged-anti-american-pro-islamist-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Watchdog Sues Voice of America News for Alleged Anti-American, Pro-Islamist Reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-watchdog-sues-voice-of-america-news-for-alleged-anti-american-pro-islamist-reporting%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1403296&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\"><span>In light of Voice of America News\u2019 (VOA) failure to respond to dozens of FOIA requests over alleged pro-Islamic bias in its Persian reporting, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) filed a lawsuit last week accusing VOA of withholding communications that demonstrate the broadcasting service\u2019s role in disseminating \u201cmessages opposed to American interest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanaccountabilityfoundation.com\"><span>American Accountability Foundation<\/span><\/a><span> (AAF), a political watchdog group that investigates and reports on bureaucratic overreach that impacts constitutional liberties, shared its complaint against the U.S. government-funded international radio broadcaster and news outlet with Breitbart News on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>In it, Voice of America (VOA), an independent arm of the U.S. government, is accused of failing to respond to nearly 60 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests throughout an investigation into allegations that VOA was \u201camplifying anti-American and pro-Islamist reporting\u201d targeting both Iranians in the region as well as Iranian-Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cVoice of America and the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) have a history of pushing partisan propaganda and manipulating the visa system to benefit shady foreign nationals,\u201d said AAF founder Tom Jones in a statement to Breitbart News.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cNow, while using American taxpayer dollars, they are openly violating FOIA rules to shield their bad behavior from the public,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>VOA, an arm of the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster, is responsible for providing objective news and information to affiliate stations worldwide in dozens of languages, including Persian in the Islamic Republic of Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>AAF alleges in its lawsuit that locals in the Middle East have raised concerns that \u201cVOA has\u00a0<\/span><span>been infiltrated by anti-American, pro-Islamic state interests, and that the message of VOA had\u00a0<\/span><span>been compromised in a manner that was biased toward the Islamic state factions in Iran.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>These concerns, including poor USAGM supervision, biased coverage, and the use of VOA to facilitate immigration visas for individuals close to the Islamic Republic government, have been echoed by Iranian-Americans whom the program appears to be targeting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>AAF claims to have requested communications between VOA staff and individuals in Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, and are accusing VOA of failing to comply with producing the records needed to ascertain the validity of the allegations, which are covered under the federal government\u2019s Freedom of Information Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In a statement to Breitbart News, Iranian advocacy group <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/iranianamericansforliberty.org\/\"><span>Iranian Americans for Liberty<\/span><\/a><span> (IAL) threw its support behind the lawsuit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p><span>\u201cThe Iranian Americans for Liberty applaud Tom Jones and the American Accountability Foundation for filing a lawsuit against Voice of America for failing to respond to multiple FOIA requests,\u201d said IAL executive director Bryan E. Leib. \u201cTransparency and accountability are two founding principles located in the VOA charter that they\u2019ve ignored for far too long.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cIt appears to us that AAF is not going to back down on this and we are prepared to do whatever is necessary to support their actions in demanding transparency from VOA,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In 2020, President Donald Trump <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/06\/15\/cdc-voice-of-america-media-requests-319503\"><span>took issue<\/span><\/a><span> with VOA\u2019s news coverage, claiming: \u201cIf you heard what\u2019s coming out of the Voice of America, it\u2019s disgusting.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhat things they say are disgusting toward our country,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><em>Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joshuaklein_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@JoshuaKlein<\/a>.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n<footer><\/footer>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In light of Voice of America News\u2019 (VOA) failure to respond to dozens of FOIA requests over alleged pro-Islamic bias in its Persian reporting, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) filed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1403296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1403296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1403296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1403296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1403296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}