Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

RFE/RL official logo
RFE/RL’s Headquarters in Prague-Hagibor
Abbreviation	RFE/RL
Formation	1949 (Radio Free Europe), 1953 (Radio Liberty), 1976 (merger)
Type	501(c)3 organization[1][2]
Tax ID no.	52-1068522
Purpose	Broadcast Media
Headquarters	Prague Broadcast Center 50°4′44″N 14°28′43″E / 50.07889°N 14.47861°E / 50.07889; 14.47861
Location	Prague, Czech Republic
Official language	English Programs are also available in Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Bosnian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chechen, Crimean Tatar, Dari, Georgian, Hungarian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Tajik, Tatar, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Uzbek In the past also Polish, Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and various other languages; see this list
Owner	U.S. Agency for Global Media
President	Stephen Capus[3]
Vice President and Head of News	Nicola Careem[4]
General Counsel/Secretary	Benjamin Herman[4]
Budget	$124,300,000[5] (Fiscal year 2021)
Staff	>1700[5]
Website	RFERL.org svoboda.org rferlo2zxgv23tct66v45s5mecftol5vod3hf4rqbipfp46fqu2q56ad.onion (Accessing link help)[6]

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries^[7] across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL operates 21 local bureaus with over 500 core staff, 1,300 freelancers, and 680 employees. Nicola Careem serves as the editor-in-chief.

Founded during the Cold War, RFE began in 1949 targeting Soviet satellite states,^[8] while RL, established in 1951, focused on the Soviet Union. Initially funded covertly by the CIA until 1972,^[9][10] the two merged in 1976. RFE/RL was headquartered in Munich from 1949 to 1995, with additional broadcasts from Portugal's Glória do Ribatejo until 1996. Soviet authorities jammed their signals, and communist regimes often infiltrated their operations.

Today, RFE/RL is a private 501(c)(3) corporation supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees all government-supported international broadcasting. Since the Revolutions of 1989 and the Soviet Union's dissolution, the organization's European presence has been reduced.

On March 15, 2025, the United States Agency for Global Media terminated grants to RFE/RL and Radio Free Asia following a directive from the Trump administration.^[11] On March 18, RFE/RL sued USAGM and two USAGM officials to block the grant termination.^[12][13]