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.

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.

“Vengeance of the state”: Italian trade unionists mobilise over threat to deport Egyptian activist

Trade unionists from the SI COBAS union are leading a campaign to defend Mohamed Shahin, imam of a mosque in Turin and an outspoken campaigner for Palestine in the city. Shahin was seized by the Italian police on 25 November and told his long-term residence permit was being revoked and that he faces deportation to…

Join Us for the MENA Solidarity AGM 2025: Building Workers’ Solidarity Across Borders

Join our AGM – Monday 13 October, 7:30 PM UK time (Zoom)

From Italy to Khartoum to Gaza, workers and ordinary people are standing up against war, violence, and economic hardship. At our Annual General Meeting, we’ll hear from a special guest from S.I. Cobas Union, whose members have led general strikes and protests across Italy. Together, we’ll explore solidarity, share experiences, and plan strategies to advance workers’ rights and justice across borders.

MENA Solidarity at Tolpuddle: Supporting Greek Dockers Blocking Israeli Arms

At the 2025 Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, MENA Solidarity supported Greek dockworkers’ actions against military shipments to Israel, aligning with international worker-led resistance. Dockworkers across countries, including Greece, France, Italy, and Morocco, and others, actively disrupted arms transfers, emphasising their crucial role in opposing war and genocide, while exposing Western governments’ complicity.

Sudanese Bin Workers Send Solidarity to Striking Birmingham Bin Workers

Despite the bloody war raging in Sudan between the country’s two major militias—the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces—bin workers in Sudan have sent a powerful message of solidarity to their counterparts in Birmingham, UK.

Urgent action: solidarity with Egyptian textile worker Hisham al-Banna

Activists in Egypt have issued an urgent appeal in solidarity with Hisham al-Banna, a worker from the Samanoud textile factory who is facing dismissal from work following a month-long strike demanding the minimum wage. The workers in the factory have been fighting to win better pay after years of battles with the company bosses over…

John McDonnell MP and trade union leaders call for release of Egyptian textile workers

Leaders of some of Britain’s biggest trade unions representing hundreds of thousands of workers across public services, health, education and transport sectors have joined Labour MP John McDonnell in condemning the arrest and detention of workers from Egyptian textile factory Misr Spinning in Mahalla al-Kubra following a strike in late February. Maryam Eslamdoust, of the…

Solidarity with arrested textile workers in Egypt

Sign this statement of solidarity Workers at Egypt’s largest textile factory in Mahalla won a major victory for tens of thousands employed across Egypt’s state-owned enterprises by forcing the government to agree to raise the minimum wage to 6000 Egyptian pounds after thousands joined a strike which shut down the mill for nearly a week…

Sudanese Resistance Committees, democratic and civil forces: stop the war, mobilise strikes and civil disobedience

19 April – published by Sudan’s Unions Solidarity on Facebook, translated by MENA Solidarity We, in the resistance committees and democratic political, civil, and professional forces, in continuation to our first statement issued on April 14th, hereby declare that our country has slid into the abyss of total war, in which generals use their weapons…

MENA Solidarity Network

Solidarity with Workers in the Middle East

Tag Archives: strike