An altercation broke out between rival protesters at Carfax Tower on Tuesday evening over military escalation in Iran. A protest against US-Israel attacks on Iran was organised jointly by the Oxford branches of Stop the War (OSTW) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (OCND), and was supported by Oxford Students Palestine Solidarity (OSPS), a group representing students at schools and universities across Oxford.
Anti-war activists set up a small stall by 5.30pm, soon joined by other protesters. Speaking to Cherwell, a protester said that he had turned out because he was “outraged by this latest adventurism by Trump”.
Organisers from OSTW chanted slogans including: “From the belly of the beast, hands off the Middle East.” Posters at the stall read: “Stop the war on Iran”, and “oppose US and Israeli imperialism”.
A small group of counter-protesters also soon arrived, carrying the ‘lion and sun’ Iranian flag, a symbol of support for the Iranian monarchy, which was ousted in 1979 by the Iranian revolution. A counter-protester told Cherwell: “For decades, Iranians tried to get rid of this regime, with many momentum [sic.]… we tried many ways, and we couldn’t. Except war, what would be our solution?”
She expressed support for the US-Israel offensive, saying: “Myself, I do not like to see my city, my lovely Tehran, my country, being bombed. Who loves war, actually? But if we do not have any solution… What would be our solution, tell me? If you have a peaceful solution, I would definitely appreciate that, but we tried so hard, many different ways.”
One counter-protester held a sign reading: “Where were you when they massacred us weeks ago”, referring to the Iranian authorities’ killing of protesters in January. Protests in Iran began on 28th December last year after a steep collapse of the country’s currency. The American-based Iranian human rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) has confirmed the deaths of over 6,500 protesters.
Around 6pm, an altercation broke out between the two groups. A man standing with the counter-protest approached anti-war protesters and began shouting.
Bombings in Iran began on Saturday morning with a joint US and Israeli attack on several sites in the capital city, Tehran. The bombing on Saturday killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The reported civilian death toll in Iran stands at 742. A strike on a primary school in southern Iran reportedly killed 165 people.
Iranian forces responded by launching strikes of their own against targets across the Middle East. Missiles and drones struck Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus. Six US soldiers were killed in a strike on a military facility on Sunday. At least ten people have been killed by Iranian strikes in Israel.
Israel conducted airstrikes on Lebanon beginning on Monday after rocket fire from the Iran-aligned group Hezbollah, and on Tuesday announced a ground incursion into southern Lebanon.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said that British armed forces in the region will not join US-Israeli offensive action in Iran but will cooperate with “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile storage depots and launchers.
In a speech to MPs on Monday, Starmer said he did not believe that the US-Israeli airstrikes were legal and that the UK had learned from its participation in the Iraq War the importance of a “viable thought-through plan”. In his strongest rebuke of US President Donald Trump yet, Starmer said he did not believe in “regime change from the skies”.
OSTW organiser Teige Matthews-Palmer told Cherwell: “Oxford Stop the War Coalition has joined CND in calling a protest against the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran, and any UK involvement in it… We live in the long shadow of the US-UK invasion of Iraq, which, far from liberating Iraqis killed up to 1 million people and left prolonged chaos and suffering, while a few profit enormously from trading arms and reshaping the flows of oil and profits in the Middle East.
“Students occupy the places where ideas, values and hopes are contested, and students have a better world to win – one that is in direct conflict with the greed and violence of our political leaders.”
During the protest, Matthews-Palmer referred to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “disgusting despots”.
An OSPS spokesperson told Cherwell: “If we’re looking for connections as oppressed people across the world from Palestine to Sudan to Congo to Kashmir and to Iran, we should fight any imperialist power that has a boot on our necks… I think Oxford students should come out to show solidarity and to demand an end to this disgusting war, and keep protesting and fighting imperialism in any of its forms.
“Everyone should pray for the innocent people across the Middle East who are being bombed by these Western powers.”
