Iran Parliament Resonates with 'Down with America' Slogan
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian nation will proudly continue with its 'Down with America' slogan, said Vice Parliament Speaker Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabifard, who also thanks the lawmakers chanting the slogan at the end of his address to parliament.
In his address before the open session of parliament on Sunday, the vice speaker referred to the November 4 anniversary of the seizure of US embassy in Tehran as a symbol of "resistance of righteousness against falsehood" in the history.
The top lawmaker called on the Iranian statesmen and parliamentarians to properly indentify challenges facing the country and pave the ground for Iran to emerge as a major economic powerhouse.
“Just as Iran has turned into a political power, is must also turn into an economic power so that the hegemonic system (a term used to refer to the West in general and the US in particular) will be incapable of taking advantage of sanctions as a means against Iran,” he added.
The Iranian MPs also chanted 'Down with America' after the vice speaker’s address, which was once again praised by Aboutorabifard, who encouraged them to remain resolute in their campaign against the global arrogance.
On November 4, 1979, and in less than a year after the victory of the Islamic Revolution that toppled a US-backed monarchy, Iranian university students that called themselves "students following the line of (the late) Imam (Khomeini)" seized the US embassy in Tehran.
The students justified the takeover by insisting that the compound had become a center of espionage and planning to overthrow the newly established Islamic system in Iran.
The students occupying the embassy later published documents proving that the compound was indeed engaged in plans and measures to overthrow the Islamic system.
Every year on the 13th day of the Iranian month of Aban (November 4), the Iranian nation, particularly the students, hold rallies across the country to mark the day.
In Iran the sense of suspicion and distrust toward the US runs deep and is shared by political elites and ordinary people, alike. In early October, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei called the US administration unreliable, supercilious, illogical and faithless.
This sense was created 60 years ago when the CIA orchestrated a coup that toppled the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadeq in 1953 and reinstated the dictatorial rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi which lasted for more than two decades until it was brought to an end by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, which brought an end to cozy relationship between the US and Iran, the American officials directed their wrath at the nascent Islamic system and made every effort to topple it, and for this purpose turned their Tehran embassy into the headquarters of anti-revolutionary forces and used it to spy on the Iranian officials and to hatch plots against the system.
Recent revelations of spying and phone tapping by the US against many countries -- even its close allies -- carried out in large parts in its diplomatic missions, give credence to the Iranian nation's assertions that the US embassy in Tehran was a "den of espionage."
