Tens of thousands of Iranians on motorcycles and in cars celebrated the 43rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on Friday, Ynet reported.
In 1979, the pro-Western shah (king) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deposed and the powerful cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became the country's supreme leader.
According to the Ynet report, revelers attended the celebrations in their vehicles due to COVID-19 restrictions forbidding public gatherings. Some participants burned Israeli and American flags while shouting "We will not give up," the report said.
Processions were held in numerous cities and towns, including Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad and Tabriz. Some attendees held photos of current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, former Supreme Leader Khomenei and the late general of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani, who was assassinated in 2020 in an American drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, the report quoted Iranian media as saying.
Ynet added that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke before Friday prayers, saying the country was never dependent on the ongoing negotiations with world powers in Vienna, Austria, regarding its nuclear program. "We hang [our] hopes in the east, west, north and south of our country," he said. "We have never hung [our] hopes in Vienna or New York."
The report noted some attendees of the speech chanted "Death to America," "Death to Israel" and "Death to England."