(Statements): Solidarity with Iranian protesters!

Statements in solidarity with Iranian protesters from Socialist Alliance (Australia), Partido Lakas ng Masa (The Philippines) and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.

Australia: Solidarity with the Iranian protest movement

Socialist Alliance, January 9.

As protests sweep across Iran, Socialist Alliance expresses its solidarity with the students, workers, shopkeepers, young people, women and all Iranians resisting a brutal and authoritarian regime.

We stand with Iranians who seek to live free from a 45-year long autocratic and repressive religious regime and who demand safety, dignity and the right to determine their own futures.

We recognise that women and queer people, as well as Kurdish, Afghan, Baluch and other marginalised communities, are among those most violently oppressed by the regime, as they are at the forefront of resistance.

We strongly oppose the opportunistic weaponisation of the Iranian people’s struggle by Israel, the United States and their allies.

Attempts to channel legitimate resistance into renewed US dominance, a Zionist-aligned regional order or a restoration of the monarchy, would simply replace one oppressive regime with another.

Iranians are caught between an autocratic and repressive religious regime, US imperialism, Zionism and monarchist restoration. Through their uprising, Iranians are making more than a choice between rival systems of domination.

We express our unwavering solidarity with them.

We firmly reject the appropriation of women’s rights by the fascist and imperialist right wing, which seeks to weaponise women’s rights to justify war, imperialism, racism and the demonisation of Muslim people.

Socialist Alliance stands in solidarity with the 92 million Iranians, and the 5 million who live outside of Iran, who all have the right to self-determination, safety, universal dignity and freedom of political, sexual, cultural and artistic expression.

Women’s liberation cannot be achieved through racism, Islamophobia or imperial violence.

The freedom of Iranians is intertwined with the freedom of Palestinians and all other oppressed peoples. True liberation is collective, anti-imperialist and rooted in international solidarity.

The Philippines: Solidarity with the workers, students, women, and all the people of Iran — No to US Intervention!

Partido Lakas ng Masa, January 13

Iran is witnessing a renewed wave of mass protests rooted in genuine grievances—economic collapse, repression, corruption, and the denial of democratic rights. 

What began as anger over soaring prices and a collapsing currency has spread nationwide, with workers striking, students mobilising, and people demanding bread, work, dignity, and freedom. The Iranian regime has responded with brutal repression, killing protesters and arresting thousands.

PLM stands in solidarity with workers, students, young people, women, LGBTQI communities, shopkeepers, and all Iranians rising up against an authoritarian and repressive regime. 

At the same time, we unequivocally reject attempts by the United States, Israel, their allies, and forces linked to the deposed Shahist monarchy to cynically exploit this uprising to advance imperial domination, impose a Zionist-aligned regional order, or restore the monarchy.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened military action against Iran under the pretext of “supporting” protesters. Such imperialist grandstanding is not solidarity. It endangers protesters, strengthens the regime’s justification for repression, and seeks to turn a genuine popular uprising into a tool of foreign power. 

Numerous civil and political activists inside Iran have warned that foreign intervention only escalates repression and places those resisting the regime at even greater risk.

This crisis cannot be separated from U.S. and Western sanctions, which amount to economic warfare and collective punishment, devastating ordinary people while strengthening authoritarian rule. 

At the same time, wealth and power remain concentrated in the hands of a narrow elite, forcing the working class and poor to bear the burden of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and repression.

As Iranians fight for liberty, U.S. imperialism, the Israeli Zionist state, and Shahist forces are once again attempting to hijack the struggle for regime-change agendas. 

Their interventions are not acts of solidarity—they fuel repression and undermine the people’s struggle. Iran’s history shows that foreign intervention brings domination, not freedom.

We stand in solidarity with the people’s struggle against the regime of the Islamic Republic and against all forms of oppression. 

We demand an immediate end to the bloody repression of protesters; the immediate and unconditional release of all detainees, political prisoners, and prisoners of conscience; and the identification and prosecution of those responsible for ordering and carrying out the killing of protesters.

The struggle in Iran is inseparable from the wider struggle against imperialism—for a free Palestine, opposition to U.S. attacks and sanctions against Venezuela, to the blockade against Cuba.

We firmly reject imperialist intervention, sanctions, war, and any attempt to restore monarchy. The future of Iran must be decided by its people alone.

Solidarity with the people of Iran.
No to U.S. and Israeli intervention.

India: As people fight for bread and liberty, Iran also has to remain alert against imperialist intervention and Shahist and Zionist conspiracies

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, January 12

Amid a deepening economic crisis in Iran, protests that began as a movement of workers and traders in December last year in Tehran’s bazaar have now spread across the country, developing into a mass uprising for livelihood, dignity, and democratic rights. Protests are unfolding across Iran as workers organise strikes and pickets in several sectors, and students rise up in resistance despite repression unleashed by the forces of the theocratic regime. According to reports, several people have been killed, with widespread violence reported from across the country, including the capital city of Tehran.

At the same time, as the Iranian people fight for bread and liberty, we are witnessing cynical attempts by US imperialism, the Israeli Zionist state and forces linked to the deposed brutal Shahist monarchy to infiltrate and hijack the movement and further their own Islamophobic narrative and clamour for regime change. The Trump regime, emboldened by its recent aggression against Venezuela and the bombing in Iran in 2025 and driven by imperial hubris, uses the pretext of “standing with the people of Iran” to recolonise the country politically and economically and subjugate its people, just as the United States did in 1953 through the CIA‑orchestrated coup (Operation Ajax) against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh.

The economic crisis in Iran is inseparable from the criminal sanctions imposed by the United States and Western powers, which amount to collective punishment of an entire population. They have devastated livelihoods, weakened public services and deepened inequality. This crisis is further aggravated by a monopolistic economic model within Iran that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals and foundations, while working class and toiling masses are made to bear the burden.

Like many historic struggles in Iran, including the 2022 Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) movement, the ongoing protests reflect the anger of the people against a tyrannical economic and political system that has for decades crushed democratic rights, suppressed trade unions and popular struggles, and denied freedom of association. 

We stand in solidarity with the democratic and working-class movements of Iran that have called for strengthening the struggle for livelihood and liberty against the repressive regime and for firmly rejecting any attempts to push the country back into the tyranny of monarchy or to exploit the protests as a pretext for imperialist intervention. The people of Iran alone have the right to determine the future of their country.