Today, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe Co-Chairman Representative Steve Cohen (TN-09) made the following statement:
“I condemn the firing of Andrew Travers from the Aspen Times. He is a clear target of lawfare. Vladislav Doronin’s defamation lawsuit against the paper is a textbook example of a strategic lawsuit against public participation. We need to resist intimidation from kleptocrats who seek to shut down investigative reporting on their misdeeds.”
Mr. Travers was unexpectedly fired as the editor of the Aspen Times on Friday, June 10, for publishing an opinion piece by columnist Roger Marolt detailing forced censorship at the Times imposed by its owner, Ogden Newspapers. The censorship order was in response to an April 13 defamation lawsuit against the Times filed by Soviet-born billionaire Vladislav Doronin, whose aim was to muzzle coverage investigating his $76 million purchase of land and development rights on Aspen Mountain .
Co-Chairman Cohen has been a champion for press freedom and an outspoken opponent of lawfare – the use of abusive legal tactics to silence, harass, or intimidate. In April, Co-Chairman Cohen sent a letter to the Biden administration calling for six UK lawyers known for their abusive tactics at the behest of oligarchs to be banned from the United States. In 2010, Co-Chairman Cohen’s SPEECH Act was signed into law, which makes foreign libel judgements unenforceable in the United States unless they meet U.S. standards of free speech.
Original source can be found here.
