Resist to win: address to revolutionary prisoners
From March 21 to 23, 2025, delegations from Zurich, Geneva, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Milan, Turin, Rome, Brussels and Toulouse met for the biannual Red Help International conference. It took place at a time of intensifying inter-imperialist contradictions amid the multidimensional crisis of capitalism, characterized in particular by the arms race in Europe and the rise of reactionary forces.
We discussed the importance of the fight for the detained revolutionaries in Europe, from the BR-PCC in Italy and PCE(r) GRAPO activists in Spain, to the persecution of Nikos Maziotis in Greece and the arrest of Daniela Klette after 30 years in clandestinity in Germany. The opening of her trial is also a reminder of the choice of revolutionary protagonists, such as in the RAF and in today’s anti-fascist movement, who have decided to continue their struggle underground. A choice that requires us to develop our solidarity. We welcomed the recent release of Comrade Arenas, General Secretary of the PCE(r), and Leonard Peltier, activist with the American Indian Movement. Both after decades of imprisonment and militant continuity.
At a time when the genocide in Palestine has redoubled in intensity, the analysis of the situation on the ground and our tasks in the face of it took an important place in our exchanges. The truce agreement imposed by the Palestinian resistance in January was discussed as a victory – partial but real. It led to the release of over 1,770 Palestinian prisoners, including leaders of the Palestinian left, such as Khalida Jarrar and Wael Jaghoub. The situation in Gaza reminds us that there can be no liberation without resistance. What’s more, the Palestinian struggle has a universal value for all the oppressed, so anti-imperialist solidarity must be understood as directly related to the class struggle here.
In this sense, we must mobilize in support of Palestinians and activists of the Palestinian cause imprisoned in Europe – like the Palestinian Anan Yaeesh currently imprisoned in Italy. In particular, the fight for the release of Georges Abdallah is of strategic importance, given his determination to defend his communist, anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist commitment despite more than 40 years in prison in France. On June 14, a demonstration will take place in the streets of Paris for his release, a few days before a new judicial hearing on June 19 – the International Day of Solidarity with Revolutionary Prisoners. Secours Rouge International is calling for participation in this demonstration, and in this campaign of support.
Similarly, we discussed the current situation in Syria, Turkey and Kurdistan with the participation of a TKP-ML comrade. While the new Syrian government led by Salafists receives imperialist support and reinforces the fracturing of the country, the Kurdish movement and the Turkish revolutionary left are developing tactics that need to be understood, analyzed and evaluated from an independent position of revolutionary internationalism in light of the concrete situation and its trajectory. In this fragile period, the revolutionary process of Rojava necessitates our international solidarity. Having stood alongside this process in the past decade, we are confident in the comrades’ capacities and willingness to navigate the challenges this process faces today. The current mobilization of millions of people against the Turkish fascist regime underlines the firm resolve of peoples to fight back against reactionary forces in the region.
In the face of capitalism’s decaying crisis and the revolutionary possibilities it opens up, pre-emptive counter-revolution is intensifying everywhere. This is what the working classes are facing in Europe, in factories and working-class neighborhoods alike. In the face of this, we must develop self-defense practices to deal with it, by strengthening internationalist and revolutionary class solidarity!
Smash capitalism, construct solidarity!
Red Help International, March 31, 2025