On January 28, a Day of Grassroots Solidarity with Iran’s rebels on the streets and in prison was held amid an extraordinarily fraught situation. The date had been set to coincide with the culmination of two years of the “No to Execution Tuesday” weekly hunger strike among prisoners, now in 56 prisons across Iran. It was co-hosted by the IEC and the Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco (UUSF) Human Rights Working Group.
In late December, a powerful uprising broke out in Iran, said to be the largest and most destabilizing uprising in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). The regime responded with a horrific massacre in the streets to crush it, and massive arrests. As January 28 dawned, the massive USS Lincoln and three destroyers arrived in striking distance of Iran, Trump making a gangster-style offer: “MAKE A DEAL… The next attack will be far worse.” These events made the solidarity actions with the radical politics of both supporting the Iranian people AND opposing the U.S./Israeli war moves all the more significant, and at the same time, controversial.
On January 28, people passing through the busy intersection outside the UUSF showed their support for a couple dozen people holding signs and banner with messages like “U.S. & ISRAEL: No War Moves on Iran! IRAN: Stop the Executions! Free All Political Prisoners!”; “104 Weeks of hunger strikes to stop executions, 55 prisons across Iran”; “From U.S. Fascists to Iran Mullahs, Down with Anti-Women Tyranny”; as well as hand-drawn posters against ICE and Trump.
That evening, a program at UUSF greeted the in person and online attendees with four videos: a freestyle rap from The Neighborhood Kids supporting the people of Iran; animated drawings based on photos of the uprising; a statement from Miles Solay of the band Outernational; and a music video produced by music students in Iran.
Co-initiator of the IEC and contributor to revcom.us, Dolly Veale, welcomed the attendees with a tribute to the late IEC co-initiator Carol Downer, who died in 2025. Dolly Veale’s introduction to the PBS documentary about the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom Uprising, spoke to the source of the fury of women and the liberatory revolution needed. She said,
Because we do live in extraordinary times in world history, I feel a responsibility to speak frankly tonight and not hold back. The film tonight is very powerful in capturing the raw fury women feel about the world and the need to end gender oppression. But as much as I admire the courageous people in repeated uprisings in Iran, there is a question that asks itself… Are we condemned to just rise up repeatedly or are we reaching for emancipation?
Dolly Veale’s opening remarks are posted in full here.
She directed people to the website of the Communist Party of Iran, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (cpimlm.org), which has translated many of Bob Avakian’s writings and speeches into Farsi. “They have great clarity about the new breakthroughs he has made in the science of communism.” A Revolution Books Berkeley spokesperson also pointed to works by Bob Avakian and from the CPIMLM available at the store (solidarity speech here).
Four inspiring statements were sent to the program highlighting polemical elements of the struggle in standing with Iran’s rebels and against U.S. imperialism. See links for full statements.
- “Nota de Solidaridad/Note of Solidarity” from A Quemar la Jaula (Colombia)
- “We stand with the people of Iran… We have learned some of the horrors U.S. imperialism inflicts on the people of the world through being part of its war machine:” Two members of Veterans for Peace Seattle Daniel Ellsberg Chapter
- “To those imprisoned: you are not forgotten… We will continue to speak where you are silenced until freedom, justice, and life prevail”: Zanan Group Northern California, an independent Iranian women’s group
- “To Trump and Mossad: Hands off Iran! To the People of Iran: We will Overthrow the Islamic Republic Ourselves!”: Osyan (“Rebel”), a group of women from Iran and Afghanistan
The conclusion of the A Quemar la Jaula (Burn the Cage) statement puts out a sharp and eloquent challenge:
Amid the recent uprising in Iran, some have emphasized that in spite of the brutality with which the Islamic Republic repressed the demonstrators, the solidarity and support from the world was absolutely insufficient and they felt “alone” in this struggle. This must change. The Iranian people and political prisoners are not alone, the people of Iran are our people, their struggle is our struggle, and it is our duty to work so that their struggle not only invokes the world’s solidarity but that it serves as an inspiration to advance in the struggle to put an end to all the oppression and exploitation that weighs on humanity.
During the Q&A period, Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, spoke about the history of Iran, the complexities of its power relations and its relation to the U.S. in particular. He countered in numerous ways the erroneous thinking that 1) the IRI is “anti-imperialist” simply because it has conflicts with the U.S., and 2) U.S. intervention could have any kind of positive effect, and emphasized: “It could only make things much, much worse.”
Grave Danger to Political Prisoners and Recent Detainees
Still under a near-total internet blackout, inmates in Iran’s Ghezel Hesar Prison managed to send out the sound of their chants on the day that marked the start of the third year of consecutive weekly hunger strikes against executions.