Aghileh Djafari Marbini’s speech at yesterday’s demonstration in Manchester in solidarity with the Iranian uprising

Brothers and sisters,

I am enormously proud to be speaking to you here today on the Iranian people’s revolution! In the past 120 years Iranians have fought and paid dearly for justice, freedom and independence. They fought against the colonial forces of British Petroleum under the leadership of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosadeq. They wanted Iranian Oil for the Iranian people and the British colonial forces did not like that, did they? MI6 and the CIA, with the help of the puppet Pahlavi regime, organised a coup against Mosadeq.

Today the Iranian people are rising up against a different kind of tyranny, a religious autocracy. Iranians are standing up despite hardship, prison and executions. They have never feared tyranny before and they are not scared today. Iranian women are at the forefront of this revolution. They are fighting whatever way they can and wherever they can, at universities, at work, everywhere! They are reminding people of their martyred brothers and sisters and they are keeping their promise of resistance to them.

The Women, Life, Freedom revolution of today is the continuation of the Iranian people’s struggle against all despotism in the last 120 years. Today is the anniversary of the 1979 revolution against the tyranny of the Pahlavi regime. We pay tribute to those that struggled against the Pahlavi regime and those struggling today. We solemnly promise to our martyred dead that their struggle for freedom continues and their names will not be forgotten.

To the British and American government and their European allies, I say: your interference has brought nothing but oppression and tyranny across the globe. We do not want your benevolent interference! We don’t want your imperialistic regime change like Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan that has brought nothing but anguish and disaster.

To the Iranian regime I say: for the past 40 years you have violated the rights of the Iranian people, particularly those of women and minority groups in the name of religion. Like all tyrannies before and after, your regime will crumble and will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Your days are numbered, victory is ours.

I say to our brothers and sisters in Iran: we salute your courage, we offer you solidarity and pledge to amplify your voices and we will do all that we can to stop our governments conducting dirty behind-closed-doors deals with this murderous regime. This regime’s brutality is unrelenting, but your determination is unwavering and an inspiration to people around the world, whether they are Palestinians in the West Bank, indigenous people in Peru or striking workers in this country.

Change in Iran will reverberate across the Middle East and will start a wave of justice and freedom across the region. Your struggle is our struggle. We know that you will succeed in achieving a free and democratic Iran for all Iranians, no matter what their ethnicity, religion, sexuality or gender identity. A truly free Iran for all!

Solidarity! I would like you to join me in chanting in Farsi: Death to the dictator, whether monarch or clergy. Marg bar setamgar che shah bashe che rahbar!

Aghileh Djafari Marbini is a Labour Party and Iranian political activist who grew up in Iran and came to the UK as a political refugee. She is a supporter of the Socialist Campaign for Democracy in Iran, website here