Hundreds of Iranians rallied Sunday by the previous US embassy in Tehran to mark the 1979 hostage disaster, burning American flags and ridiculing Joe Biden and Donald Trump simply two days earlier than the US presidential election.
“There is no distinction between Biden and Trump, between the donkey and the elephant,” stated protester Saber Danaie, 23, of the animal mascots that symbolize the Democratic and Republican events in america.
“They each observe the identical coverage,” stated the development employee, as a large puppet meant to symbolize US President Joe Biden hung over the group.
An image of his predecessor Donald Trump, who hopes to beat his rival Kamala Harris and win the American presidential election on Tuesday, lay trampled on the bottom.
Sunday’s rally commemorated the 1979 hostage disaster, which started 9 months after the Islamic revolution led by Iran’s late supreme chief Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
College students loyal to Khomeini stormed the embassy compound and held 52 employees hostage for 444 days whereas demanding that Washington hand over Iran’s lately toppled shah, who was being handled in america for most cancers.
Washington formally broke off relations with Tehran in 1980, halfway by means of the disaster, and so they have been frozen ever since.
Iran celebrates the occasion yearly in Tehran in entrance of the previous embassy that has been remodeled right into a museum often known as the “Den of Spies”.
– ‘Destruction of Israel’ –
“Dying to America, dying to Israel!” chanted crowds of Iranians, together with many schoolchildren and college students, as they sang revolutionary songs outdoors the constructing.
The embassy’s seizure has formed relations between america and Iran for many years, with Tehran contemplating it an act of defiance towards what they describe because the “international conceitedness” of the West.
Israel’s battle with Palestinian militants Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, two militant teams supported financially and militarily by Tehran, took centre stage on the rally.
Demonstrators brandished portraits of distinguished figures, together with slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, killed by an Israeli strike in Beirut, in addition to Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I’m right here for the destruction of Israel and America,” Hassani, a 42-year-old civil servant who didn’t want to give his full identify, informed AFP.
“Felony America is on the root of all these wars and all this hatred” within the area, he stated.
Close by, a mural depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu digging his nation’s grave.
Iran doesn’t recognise Israel and considers it an extension of america within the Center East.
– Tough relations –
Iranian leaders have made help for the Palestinian trigger one of many pillars of their overseas coverage because the Islamic Republic was established in 1979.
The presidential campaigns of each Harris and Trump have been intently adopted in Iran.
Nevertheless, many of the Iranians AFP spoke to on Sunday stated the vote’s final result is unlikely to fix relations between the 2 international locations.
“Relations between Iran and America can’t return to regular,” stated Mohammadi, a 40-year-old housewife, who gave solely her final identify.
“We have now repeatedly proven America our honesty” to enhance relations “however America doesn’t care,” she stated, cloaked in a black chador.
Iran, topic to important worldwide sanctions, reached an settlement with the key powers in 2015 to restrict its nuclear programme in trade for a gradual lifting of sanctions.
However the pact was torpedoed three years later below Trump whose administration withdrew from it and reimposed sanctions.
“It does not matter who the following American president is,” stated a lady on the protest, who requested that AFP not determine her.
“We have now by no means favored any of them and that will not change now.”
