Iranians living in UK tell Starmer that war will only strengthen Tehran regime | US-Israel war on Iran
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among three former Iranian political prisoners and more than 100 Iranians living in Britain who have called on the British prime minister not to be drawn further into the Iran conflict.
They are all signatories of a letter to Keir Starmer saying the war is about strengthening the regime in Tehran.
The letter serves as a counter to those in the diaspora who support Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former pro-Western ruler, and who support attacks on Iran as the beginning of regime change. Pahlavi has offered to lead a democratic transition, but Trump has said he is looking for an internal candidate to lead the Middle Eastern country.
In their letter, they say: “No one can claim to want the end of the Islamic republic more than we do. But attacking the country in this way will have the opposite effect. It will consolidate the authoritarians and give life to the fiction that has sustained them internally for decades: that they are fighting against Western imperialism.”
“When Netanyahu, accused of international war crimes after killing countless civilians in Gaza, assassinated Iran’s dictator, it killed the man but immortalized the legend. Iranians wanted him to be tried and punished for his crimes, rather than the martyrdom he desired.”
86-year-old religious leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated along with many members of his family in Israeli air strikes on the first day of the war. He was succeeded by one of his sons, Mojtaba Khamenei.
In the letter, the group lays out a number of peaceful and practical steps to aid internal dissent, including those held in prison, such as providing Starlink to end the ongoing communications blackout in Iran.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian national, was held primarily in a prison in Tehran for six years from 2016 on espionage charges. The signatories include Iranian political prisoner Aras Amiri, a former British Council employee who was imprisoned for three years in Tehran’s Evin prison, and Nesrin Parvaz, who spent eight years in Iranian prisons from 1982. Others include high-profile artists within the Iranian society as well as high-profile artists within the Iranian society. academics and writers.
They write: “A pro-democracy policy will protect political prisoners and ensure that Israel and the United States do not bomb prisons like Evin. This is where Iran’s future democratic leaders reside. A pro-democracy policy will smuggle internet devices, not weapons, across the border and break the blackout engulfing the country. A pro-democracy policy will call out Israel’s assassination policy, even when it targets leaders we hate. There is much that can be done in solidarity.” “But joining Netanyahu’s eternal wars with the Iranians is not.”
Starmer changed his policy of rejecting any cooperation with the US attack on Iran when he said it was necessary to stop the Gulf countries from being attacked by Iran.
The Iranian group says in the letter that they are “saddened”. For decades, we have been hoping for the day when Iranian democracy could finally blossom. “Many of us have not been able to visit Iran for years for fear of imprisonment or worse.”
And they criticize the Israeli leader, arguing that racism underlies his policy when he calls on Iranians “not to sit with your arms folded and instead to stand up to get the job done.” They reject the assumption behind his statement that “90 million people have been idly waiting for his bombs for decades.”
They add: “This isn’t just Netanyahu’s war, of course; Trump and the US are a big part of it. But as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: ‘The President made a very wise decision; we knew there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew it would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer more casualties.” So the USA followed Netanyahu in this war.”
