2025 in Review: Voices of Resistance Across MENA and Beyond

As 2025 comes to a close and we step into 2026, we at MENA Solidarity Network reach out in solidarity, gratitude, and revolutionary determination. Explore our roundup of the key articles published since 1 January 2025 — a year of struggle, resistance, and international working-class solidarity across the Middle East and beyond. From war zones and imperialist supply chains to workers uniting across borders, these reports and analyses map the terrain of resistance.
Read, share, reflect, and organise — let 2026 be a year of stronger solidarity, renewed struggle, and internationalist victory.

Statement: solidarity with Alaa Abd el-Fattah

Statement in solidarity with Alaa Abd el-Fattah We affirm our solidarity with Alaa Abd el-Fattah and extend a warm welcome to him as he is reunited with his family in Britain after spending years unjustly incarcerated alongside thousands of other political prisoners in the jails of a dictatorship for speaking out against human rights abuses.…

Cartoons Are Not a Crime – Free Ashraf Omar, Stop Egypt’s Repression

When a cartoon becomes a crime, authoritarianism reveals its fear of truth.
Ashraf Omar — cartoonist, translator, and political artist — has been imprisoned for his drawings, accused of terrorism for exposing social and political realities. His case is not an exception, but part of Egypt’s systematic assault on freedom of expression, independent journalism, and dissent. We demand his immediate release. The pen is not a crime.

20 December (London): March for Sudan — End the War | Defend the Revolution | Expose the Imperialist Order

On 20 December, we will march in London to mark the seventh anniversary of the Sudanese uprising and to stand with a people still resisting war, military rule, counter-revolution, and imperialism.
The war in Sudan is being waged by rival militias (SAF & RSF) and sustained by international backers who profit from violence and destruction. Civilians face killing, hunger, and mass displacement — and silence is not an option.
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Event: Sudan Solidarity Conference 2026

The Sudan Solidarity Conference 2026 will bring together activists, trade unionists and community organisers to stand with the struggles for justice in Sudan and Palestine. The conference will amplify grassroots voices resisting imperialism, war, genocide, racism, and build the international solidarity needed to fight for peace and democratic change. Join us on 17 January — join us in taking action, organising and standing in solidarity.

Leonardo arms workers in Italy launch petition demanding an end to all contacts and collaboration with Israel: “Not in my name, not with my labour”

Over 20,000 people have backed a petition initiated by a group of workers at Italian arms manufacturer Leonardo’s Grottaglie factory demanding the weapons maker sever all ties with Israel. “With this petition, which starts from some of Leonardo’s workers and which is extended to the entire civilian population, we firmly refuse to be complicit in…

Block Everything, Everywhere: International Trade-Unionists’ Meeting for Palestine

Wednesday 26 November, 7:30pm UK time Register here in advance of this Zoom meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/bPol0JitQRSUqqd5zC3nPQ  The so-called “peace plan” endorsed by the UN Security Council is a new colonial blueprint against the Palestinian people: a plan to freeze the genocide in place, disarm the resistance, and entrench Western-Zionist domination while violations continue unabated. Across Europe,…

Free Abo Bakr Hamza: The Lawyer Who Dared to Help in Sudan’s War

At a time when Sudan is being torn apart by war, famine, and mass killing and displacement at the hands of both Sudanese militias – the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the case of Lawyer Abo Bakr Mansour Mohamed Hamza shows exactly who pays the price for their struggle for power: ordinary people who try to keep their communities alive.