Europe’s Free Speech Reckoning as US Slaps Visa Bans

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Europe free speech crisis deepens as Djoomart Otorbaev urges reopening Radio Free Europe and Voice of America amid US–EU clash over censorship

By TRH World Desk

New Delhi, December 26, 2025 — Former Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic Djoomart Otorbaev has said that Europe is facing a free speech crisis. He advocated that “it is time to Reopen Radio Free Europe and Voice of America.”

“The unthinkable has happened—and it has now been officially announced. Europe is censoring undesirable content. Not quietly. Not informally. Not behind closed doors. But openly, legally, and with bureaucratic confidence,” claimed Otorbaev in a post shared on LinkedIn.

He argued that the trend in Europe is “about power—who decides what may be said, who may speak, and who must be silenced.” Otorbaev writes regularly on geopolitics and shares his long posts on LinkedIn.

Arguing that there is a truly historic twist, Otorbaev said: “Europe’s censorship machine has gone so far that it triggered sanctions against Europeans themselves—imposed by the US.”

He gave instances to substantiate his claims. “On December 23, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa bans against five well-known Europeans accused of orchestrating pressure campaigns against American online platforms—censorship, de-monetisation, and suppression of viewpoints Washington consider legitimate,” added Otorbaev.

He detailed that “among those banned is Thierry Breton, former European Commissioner and one of the architects of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU’s flagship regulatory weapon against Big Tech.”

“The US’s closest allies are now being treated as ideological adversaries. Not for tanks or missiles—but for speech,” Otorbaev argued, as he added that “this is an extraordinary acknowledgement of reality: there is, in fact, a powerful supranational apparatus in Europe that operates beyond voters and beyond national governments.”

“The DSA lies at the heart of this confrontation. Under the banner of safety, it threatens platforms with fines of up to 6% of global turnover or outright bans if they fail to remove content deemed harmful,” added Otorbaev.