The French language contresubversion blog has been keeping an eye on the Tlass family over the past year and has come across some very interesting links between the Tlass family and members of the far right in France. Frédéric Chatillon, who I've previously mentioned as recently founding the InfoSyrie site, leader and long term associate of the far right Groupe Union Défense, and close friends with Jean-Marie Le Pen, has a communication agency called Riwal.
Riwal was created in March 1995 and it is primarily engaged in communication consulting, direct marketing, book publishing and magazines and mail order, mostly of the far right variety.
After a raid on the GUD pro-Hamas posters were discovered that were linked to Damascus, and allegedly paid for by the Syrian Ministry of Defence, which as the time was led by Manaf Tlass's father, General Moustafa Tlass. The Tlass family themselves have links to publishing, as they own the publishing house Dar Tlass, which published anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial literature. In addition to the previously mentioned posters produced by Riwal Damascus also funded the production of anti-Semitic revisionist texts that were translated into Arabic.
According to the conresubversion blog the links between the Tlass family and French far right go back nearly two decades, if not more
The first contacts between Chatillon and Tlass dating from October 1994: Frédéric Chatillon, during a visit to Damascus, had met to discuss general assistance that it could bring to his movement.What this shows is that the 5 day visit to Syria I reported on yesterday wasn't just a one off event between the far right and Tlass family, but part of an ongoing relationship between the Tlass family and major figures in the French far right. These links need to be exposed at a time when it's rumoured that Tlass will be promoted by the French to be part of any Syrian transitional government.
Many thanks to Stephanie Lamy for all her help.
You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com
if you speak arabic check this website in 10 hours they will be publishing in full details the relation between meyssan, chatillon and the syrian regime.
ReplyDeletethe-syrian.com
i had the chance to a sneak preview and they r matching ur story
ur peice about the GUD pro-hamas posters are not very accurate ...cuz acording to the "yet to publish" article on the-syrian.com... riwal was in busniess since 1995 but only in 2008 they opened an office in damascus between 1995 and 2005 the activities of the compeny never reached syria, actually it lost one of its potential costumers as a result of a leaked picture of chatillon in damascus, since the costumer did not want his brand associated with the not-so-popular-in-france then bashar alassad... then when chatillon was head of GUD he had no links with syria...at least as i have infront of me
ReplyDeletefinally in ur last blog u seem to mix what im led to believe 2 different visits ... the pictures in ur post r not from the 5 days visit in 2006 on their way to lebanon but apparently from the one took place in 2008 just b4 the launch of riwalsyria
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'll double check my translation from the French article, might have got a few things mixed up.
ReplyDeleteI'm highlighting that the Tlass family is friendly with far right conspiracy theorists and Muslim hating anti-Semites, but judging by your post I can understand why you'd think that wasn't such a big deal.
ReplyDelete