Iranians ridicule Biden, Trump at US hostage crisis rally

TEHRAN — Thousands of Iranians rallied Sunday by the former US embassy in Tehran to mark the 1979 hostage crisis, burning American flags and ridiculing Joe Biden and Donald Trump just two days before the US presidential election.

"There's no difference between Biden and Trump, between the donkey and the elephant," said protester Saber Danaie, 23, of the animal mascots that represent the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. 

"They both follow the same policy," said the construction worker, as a giant puppet meant to represent US President Joe Biden hung over the crowd.

A picture 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 ground.

Sunday's rally commemorated the 1979 hostage crisis, which began nine months after the Islamic revolution led by Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

Students loyal to Khomeini stormed the embassy compound and held 52 staff hostage for 444 days while demanding that Washington hand over Iran's recently toppled shah, who was being treated in the United States for cancer.

Washington officially broke off relations with Tehran in 1980, midway through the crisis, and they have been frozen ever since.

Iran celebrates the event every year in Tehran in front of the former embassy that has been transformed into a museum known as the "Den of Spies".

 'Destruction of Israel' 

"Death to America, death to Israel!" chanted crowds of Iranians, including many schoolchildren and students, as they sang revolutionary songs outside the building.

The embassy's seizure has shaped relations between the United States and Iran for decades, with Tehran considering it an act of defiance against what they describe as the "global arrogance" of the West.

Israel's war with Palestinian militants Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, two militant groups supported financially and militarily by Tehran, took centre stage at the rally.

Demonstrators brandished portraits of prominent figures, including slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed by an Israeli strike in Beirut, as well as Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"I am here for the destruction of Israel and America," Hassani, a 42-year-old civil servant who did not wish to give his full name, told AFP.

"Criminal America is at the root of all these wars and all this hatred" in the region, he said.

Nearby, a mural depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu digging his country's grave.

Iran does not recognise Israel and considers it an extension of the United States in the Middle East.

 Difficult relations 

Iranian leaders have made support for the Palestinian cause one of the pillars of their foreign policy since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979.

The presidential campaigns of both Harris and Trump have been closely followed in Iran.

However, most of the Iranians AFP spoke to on Sunday said the vote's outcome is unlikely to mend relations between the two countries.

"Relations between Iran and America cannot return to normal," said Mohammadi, a 40-year-old housewife, who gave only her last name.

"We have repeatedly shown America our honesty" to improve relations "but America does not care," she said, cloaked in a black chador.

Iran, subject to significant international sanctions, reached an agreement with the major powers in 2015 to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for a gradual lifting of sanctions.

But the pact was torpedoed three years later under Trump whose administration withdrew from it and reimposed sanctions.

"It doesn't matter who the next American president is," said a woman at the protest, who asked that AFP not identify her.

"We have never liked any of them and that won't change now."