TEHRAN, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Iranians on Friday held massive outdoor rallies to mark the seizure of the U.S. Embassy to Iran in 1979, showing defiance against U.S. hegemony.

 

Iranians marked the National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance on Friday, with people in Tehran taking to the streets leading to the building of the former U.S. embassy and gathering outside the building, waving flags and chanting anti-U.S. slogans.

 

Similar protests were held in roughly 900 cities countrywide, according to Iranian media. Participants demonstrated "their disgust at the hostile policies of the hegemonic system at the head of America," the official news agency IRNA commented.

 

On the same day 43 years ago, Iranian university students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Every year on this day, the Iranians commemorate the seizure of the embassy with anti-U.S. demonstrations.

 

On Friday, Iranian demonstrators also walked over and set on fire the U.S. flags during the ceremony in the capital which featured Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's speech.

 

Addressing the public on this special day, Raisi said "if a list of crimes and injustices in the world is to be presented, America is at the top of this list."

 

Throughout history, he noted, the United States participated in hundreds of wars and armed conflicts, and plotted or staged dozens of coups against elected leaders, adding some of "the deadliest wars in the history of the world, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam are part of the list of U.S. crimes."

 

Military intervention in other countries in the name of fighting terrorism, supporting separatist movements and terrorism in many parts of the world, and the launching of sanctions against other countries, especially Iran, are "examples of America's arrogant actions," said the Iranian president.

 

Echoing Raisi's speech, Tehran municipality has also set up banners of U.S. crimes on Taleghani Street showing Abu Ghraib prison torture during the Iraq War and the killing of defenseless Iraqis.

 

Meanwhile, the standing images of martyrs like Iran's late top commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike near the airport of Iraq's capital Baghdad in January 2020, were also placed in commemoration, with which students took photographs.