WASHINGTON -- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Moldovan Service freelancer and longtime Romanian Service journalist Sabina Fati has been recognized as one of Romania’s “Women of Courage.”
In remarks during a May 11 ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest, U.S. Ambassador Hans Klemm said Fati “literally helped build democracy in Romania” during her eight years as a Bucharest-based reporter for RFE/RL’s Romanian Service from 1994-2002, “via her daily reports promoting transparency and anti-corruption.” Fati’s reporting was not without danger, Ambassador Klemm added, noting that “Soon after giving birth to her daughter in 199, she was physically attacked…while reporting on the lack of transparency in government security institutions.”
Ambassador Klemm also mentioned the solo trips Fati took for RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service to report “about regimes whose foreign policy could influence the security of Romania and the world.” In 2014, Fati traveled 11 weeks along the ancient Silk Road, from the Black Sea through Azerbaijan, Iran, across Central Asia and on the fringes of the Gobi desert. In 2016, Fati spent three months circumnavigating the Black Sea, traveling through Romania, Ukraine, Crimea, Russia, Georgia, and Turkey, to tell her audiences in Moldova “the human stories behind the official realities, and [show] how isolated neighboring countries can become without proper knowledge of one another.”
RFE/RL’s Moldovan Service, which continues the 67-year mission of RFE/RL’s former Romanian Service, Radio Europa Libera, increases its audience’s understanding of local, regional, and global events by creating audio and visual programming in the Romanian and Russian languages for Moldova and the breakaway Transdniester region. Reaching more than 30 percent of Moldovans, the Service is the most popular international radio broadcaster in Moldova.
