CWI members have been attending protests in solidarity with the uprising in Iran, including a huge demonstration in Berlin on 22 October numbering in the tens of thousands. Members of Sozialistische Organisation Solidarität (Sol) in Berlin supported the call for general strike action and raised the need for the Iranian workers’ movement to set its own agenda.
Sol members also attended the 4,000-strong demo in Stuttgart on the same day calling for a united fightback against the cost-of-living crisis and capitalism in Germany and Iran.
In Leeds too, Socialist Party members attended the fourth solidarity protest with Iranian workers and women on 22 October, where Iranian students took and photocopied Socialist Party leaflets to hand out themselves. Leeds Socialist Students member Isla Defty reports: “Socialist Party and Socialist Students members came together with the University of Leeds Iranian society and others to protest in solidarity with the people of Iran who are being persecuted and killed for fighting back. Speakers included Socialist Party organiser Iain Dalton and chants echoed those of protesters in Iran, in particular ‘Women, Life, Freedom’, ‘Zan, Zendegi, Azadi’ in Farsi.”
A week earlier, on 15 October, Plymouth Socialist Party members joined a protest that passed our weekly campaign stall. Duncan Moore says: “About 300 or so were out to protest against the killing of Mahsa Amini, and hundreds of others in the latest brutal crackdown by the Iranian government. The protesters, mostly local Iranians, chanted “Women, Life, Freedom”. Socialist Party member Laurie Moore spoke at the rally, sending solidarity to the Iranian people and all women fighting around the world, and stating the need for socialism to end women’s oppression.”
