by
Speech, as read out by Mary Sullivan at the start of the demonstration against the war: Whitstable, 22 March 2026.
Photographs by Andrew Hastings
My father was born in Shiraz, Iran, and grew up in Tehran with his five siblings. Uncle Kouros, a doctor, died following exposure to Iraqi biological weapons during his service in the Iran-Iraq war. His widow, Zeba, is thankfully safe with my cousin Mehran and his wife Nasrin in London. When the situation began to look unsafe, Aunt Kathy, another doctor, was fortunate to be able to relocate to Los Angeles to stay with my cousin Nema. Aunt Goli, a retired school teacher, died in Tehran just days before the US and Israel attacked a primary school. In the midst of his grief, her son – my cousin Hirad – had to flee the city with his wife and son. Maryam, an embryologist and widow of Uncle Bijan, who we lost in November, has said messaged from Tehran to say she is too deep in mourning to be concerned about the war raging around her.
What is happening to Iran should be condemned with all our might. As the school attack shows, the war has little to do with protecting the civilian population. The excuse that has been given for launching hostilities is preventing Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. While the late Ayatollah Khamenei supported the enrichment of uranium for nuclear energy, he rejected the development of nuclear weapons as un-Islamic. In assassinating him, the US and Israel lost a valuable ally in the region.
In Iran, the US and Israel is following a playbook established in Gaza with horrific consequences. This involves the decimation of a civilian population on a spurious pretext to terrify the people into submission. We see the same happening with another of the State of Israel’s enemies, Lebanon.
In his second presidency, Donald Trump has been ruthless in his pursuit of US interests and his support for the State of Israel. His actions in relation to Greenland and Venezuela suggest control of oil reserves as an abiding preoccupation. But the Trump administration seems to have failed to anticipate Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as a passageway to a significant proportion of the world’s oil and gas.
My father, who we sadly lost four years ago, cautioned that the US would be overstretching itself if it ever attacked Iran, a country nearly four times the size of Iraq. We all witnessed the catastrophe of the Iraq war for its citizens and for peace within the region and beyond. In focusing on Iran’s military targets, the US lacks the resources to counteract the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and there is little international appetite to join in. With any luck, this folly will prove to be the downfall of Donald Trump.
The speakers at the rally were:
Andrew Murray – Trade Unionist (Unite the Union) and advisor to Jeremy Corbyn (2018-2020).
Dr Kaveh Abbasian – award-winning scholar and filmmaker and lecturer in Film and Media Practice at the University of Kent.
Dr Shahd Hammouri – a Palestinian/Jordanian and an academic and international lawyer. She is a lecturer in Law at the University of Kent. She was a panel member on the Gaza Tribunal.
Rory Heap – Trade-Unionist and Chair of Unite Community South East, Canterbury branch.
Gallery
Photographs by Andrew Hastings
(click on images to enlarge)
About
Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt has worked in Parliament and with the Greater London Authority, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, London Arts & Health and many universities, trusts and foundations.
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