For 8 years, the Voltaire Network has been unable to open a bank account in a Western country. Whatever the location, after having received a primary agreement, we were informed that our account had been refused by the Central Bank of the country concerned, but without any reason being given. Everything transpires as if there existed a confidential international black list shared by the Central Banks.
Today we are obliged to reimburse the money invested for the hosting and maintenance of the site over the last few years – a total of 48,000 Euros.
A collection box system – the Internet site Leetchi – was created in France by a branch of the Crédit Mutuel Arkéa for the collection of donations. In last June, this site was blocked by the Justice Department after it had acted to close down a collection on behalf of the boxer Christophe Dettinger, accusing him of wanting to avoid paying his legal expenses, but to put money aside in order to pay any eventual fines, which is illegal. Mr.Dettinger was charged with having bare-knuckled some gendarmes (in riot gear) who were manhandling a woman during a Yellow Vests demonstration.
Then came the sudden appearance of second collection box system, Le Pot Commun. It is in all points absolutely identical to the first. Its Internet site is the copy and paste of Leetchi, which leads us to believe that it is run by the same company. Two weeks ago, we contacted them to organise a collection. They accepted our request as well as the administrative credentials we had sent them. However, when we gave them the order to transfer the money already collected to a designated bank account which had been opened for the occasion, they no longer replied. On 25 July, they wrote that the order had been recorded, but not executed. We wrote to them several times. They did not answer. Suddenly, on 1 August, they closed our collection and sent a message to all our donors announcing they would reimburse them, allegedly « at their demand ».
To sum up: 
We still have to reimburse 48,000 Euros, and we don’t have a penny. Your money did not reach us. Le Pot Commun has refused to honour the contract – not because of the suspicion of a possible infraction, but entirely by discrimination against our political opinions. Le Pot Commun has stolen the sum already gathered (47,771 Euros).The fact that it has taken on itself to reimburse our donors protects it from legal proceedings for theft on the donors’ part, but not on ours. In order to pay back our donors, Le Pot Commun has linked files that they had no right to connect. It has composed an illegal, nominative, political file which includes, apart from the name of the collection, the names of the donors and their bank information.
At this stage, we do not know who is at the origin of these offences.
The Voltaire Network was founded in 1994 at the European Parliament. It first of all united governmental political parties, national trade unions, and newspapers in order to defend the freedom of expression in France, which was threatened by a legal amendment. As from 1999 and the entry of France into war against Serbia, it turned its gaze towards foreign policy, to which it applied its critical attention. After the attacks of 2001, it published many enquiries on this subject with the support of all its members. However, in 2002, when its founder and president, Thierry Meyssan, published a compilation of the events of 9/11, many organisations withdrew their support. Progressively, the Voltaire Network became a source of information and analysis concerning many on-going conflicts. Its articles are today translated into several languages and figure in the Press reviews of numerous governments.
The continuation or disappearance of the Voltaire Network is therefore a political issue on an international scale.
We are asking you: To check that you have been reimbursed for your donation without added expenses. In the Dettinger affair, several people complained that they had been robbed. If this case should arise, contact us via [email protected] To come to our help as quickly as possible by sending a bank transfer to the dedicated bank account, opened for this purpose by our representative in France, Alain Benajam. As for the motive of the transfer, please write PRECISELY « Soutien à Voltairenet.org ». Here is the bank information:
Name : Alain Benajam
IBAN : FR76 1659 8000 0113 8513 8000 182
BIC : FPELFR21
RIB : 16598 00001 13851380001 82
We will keep you informed about what happens next. This affair will enable us all to judge whether or not France still operates by the rule of law.