Saturday 14th of June 2025 Manchester

We would like to extend our revolutionary salutes to the historic resistance of the Palestinian people. For over 77 years, Palestinians have stood firm against occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Today, once again, we stand with them – unconditionally and unapologetically – in their just struggle for liberation, despite the dystopian violence they have endured for the past 20 months of recent genocide, now at its extreme, caused by the starvations of the people of Gaza in the concentration camps created jointly by the U.S. and the Zionist regime.

In this spirit of solidarity, we categorically reject the Zionist regime – a settler-colonial, criminal, and apartheid entity – in all its material and ideological forms and extensions. Zionism is not simply a policy; it is a criminal project that seeks to annihilate indigenous life across West Asia, most brutally in Palestine. This project is upheld not only by the occupation regime but also by decades of the U.S. and the U.K. imperialism, which have armed and defended this genocidal machine.

As an Iranian collective, we do not even compare our struggle with the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people. Yet we recognize a deep, shared history of dispossession. Both our peoples have endured centuries of colonial interference – our sovereignty shredded by wars and economic subjugation. What binds us is not the similarity of suffering, but solidarity against the same structures of imperial violence.

This bond was sharpened by a catastrophic and unprovoked war imposed on Iran by the Zionist entity since the early hours of yesterday, when the Zionist regime launched a massive and ongoing military assault on the Iranian people. Under the guise of self-defence for the most aggressive criminal entity in the Middle East, occupation forces bombed major Iranian cities – a blatant act of war with no international accountability. Iran has the right to defend itself against ongoing waves of war crimes committed by the Zionist regime.

The airstrikes were widespread and indiscriminate. (After the first few hours of the death and destruction caused by the Zionists in Iran the impact represents extreme violence and aggression used; as of the time this statement was issued – Saturday 14th of June morning. The number of casualties have drastically increased since then.)

In the capital city of Tehran: Neighbourhoods like Tajrish, Sa’adat Abad, Vanak, Yaft Abad, and many others were hit hard, resulting in numerous civilian deaths.

At least 40 civilians – including children and the elderly – were killed, and at least 40 military personnel, scientists, and politicians were assassinated in the middle of the night. Our country and the region were changed forever by this cruel aggression.

In many cities such as Esfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Ahvaz, Abadan, Arak, and many others, missiles and drones devastated civilian residential buildings. Entire families were buried under rubble. In one case, a state welfare school and care centre was bombed in Qasr-e Shirin in Kurdistan.

In cities such as Tabriz and Kermanshah: The bombing of air defence systems within city limits caused secondary explosions in civilian areas.

Airports in Tehran, Tabriz, and Isfahan were heavily bombed.

These were not surgical strikes – they were acts of terror from the skies, inflicted with a criminal intent on ordinary people.

The militarisation of the entire country has caused major disruption in internet access, telecommunications, and the circulation of reliable information.

We demand the condemnation of this act of war without hesitation or political manipulation.

The Zionist regime has also targeted highly sensitive and dangerous infrastructure, such as nuclear sites in Natanz and Fordow. So far, in Natanz, it has been reported that radiation levels outside the facility remain unchanged; however, some leakages have been reported inside. We emphasize that military assaults on nuclear facilities are an internationally recognised red line.

The targeting of cities, families, and infrastructure reveals the true criminal face of Zionism, far beyond Palestine.

In a move both grotesque and cynical, Benjamin Netanyahu – the same war criminal responsible for these attacks – called on the Iranian people to rise up, invoking “Woman, Life, Freedom”. To hear the slogan of our feminist resistance weaponized by the head of a genocidal regime is a cruel distortion of its liberatory power and an insult to our dignity.

We reject the appropriation of our movements. No imperialist power – whether Zionist, American, or European – can claim solidarity with our struggles while bombing our cities, sanctioning our food and medicine, or propping up despotic regimes in our region.

We live under a global double standard, where the lives of European settlers in occupied Palestine are deemed more valuable than the lives of Indigenous peoples in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond. But these assaults only deepen our collective awakening and commitment to lead a revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle in our countries.

While we continue to resist authoritarianism and repression in Iran, we will never allow foreign powers to exploit our pain. Nor will we allow imperialist violence to isolate us from the broader anti- colonial and anti-capitalist struggles across West Asia and North Africa.

Military intervention, sanctions, and enforced dependency are not tools of liberation – they are weapons of control. They breed suffering and stifle the very emancipatory movements they pretend to support.

At this historically decisive moment, we call for:

• The absolute condemnation of Zionism, and of the U.S./U.K. governments that enable the crimes of this fabricated entity.

• An end to all military assaults and economic warfare against Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen.

• An unprecedented surge of solidarity among the peoples of Iran and Palestine—on every front— toward liberation, sovereignty, and popular unity!

• The rise of revolutionary movements: from resistance brigades all over Palestine, to Yemen’s struggle for autonomy, to the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan—and to the global majority and marginalised peoples of the South. From the convoys of resilience now resisting behind the closed borders of Rafah, to the freedom flotilla approaching Gaza from the sea, and to Pal Action and solidarity movements in the West. Each of them represent a significant front in our collective battle against Zionism and imperialism.

We march today not just in protest, but in commitment – to a future beyond empire, beyond borders, and beyond domination. From the river to the sea, and from Kurdistan to Baluchistan – our freedom is inseparable.

Down with Zionism. Down with imperialism. Long live Palestine. Long live the resistance.

RRC, 14/06/2025.

Manchester in Solidarity with Palestine

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