On Friday some government supporters in Iran celebrated the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. They held up pictures of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while others burned American and Israeli flags. President Ebrahim Raisi spoke to a crowd in front of what was the U.S. Embassy, blaming the U.S. for the current unrest gripping the country. Elsewhere in Iran, larger protests continued that have been ongoing for the past seven weeks since the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman arrested by the country’s morality police. With slogans calling for the death of Khamenei and the overthrow of the current government, these protests are a stark contrast to the remembrance in Tehran, and much more so to the protests 43 years ago.
