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Chaos erupted in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park as a vigil to mourn the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei turned violent on Friday, with video showing a man being beaten to the ground as he tried to tear down a poster of the late Iranian leader.
The video showed a man trying to tear down a poster of the dictator – who was killed last week in an Israeli attack – when a man wearing a SpongeBob sweatshirt punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.
Some started fighting, prompting the intervention of the New York Police Department (NYPD).
When a fight broke out, the crowd could be heard shouting insults.
A memorial table in New York City for Khamenei, who is accused of killing thousands of Iranians. (Rashid Umar Abbasi of Fox News Digital)
Many people were caught on video being arrested by the police.
The vigil featured a makeshift memorial table covered in Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, candles and portraits of Khamenei, with an onlooker describing the scene as “the People’s Republic of New York.”
Meanwhile, nearby protesters raised Iranian, American and Israeli flags while chanting “USA”
Khomeni’s supporters raised a large flag wearing his image. (Rashid Umar Abbasi of Fox News Digital)
In a paper announcing the event, organizers called Khamenei’s death “an assassination by US government forces.”
Saturday’s strike in the city of Tehran that killed Khamenei and other regime leaders was carried out by the Israeli army.
US officials have denied involvement.
“Throughout his life, Khamenei defended the dignity of the Iranian people and stood firmly against zionism. [sic] and the rogue American regime,” the activists wrote in the paper. “Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 overthrew the US-backed puppet government, the Iranian people have resisted Western rule and the exploitation of their land, labor and resources.
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“At that time, Iran severed all relations with the zionists [sic] and was the first country to host a Palestinian embassy on its soil, while supporting the Palestinian resistance and national liberation movements around the world.”
Among Khamenei’s supporters was a group of protesters who held a vigil carrying American flags and pre-1979 Islamic Revolution Iranian Lion and Sun flags.
“We’re here to show everybody that the Iranian people don’t like the regime,” a man at the vigil told Fox News host Nicole Parker on “Hannity.”
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Protesters and counter-protesters gathered inside Washington Square Park in New York, New York, on Friday afternoon. (Rashid Umar Abbasi of Fox News Digital)
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“My family is in Iran, but they’re all fighting the regime,” one woman told Parker. “They are happy about this, they want this war – this war is not [the] Iranian people, this war is against the Islamic Republic. “
Fox News Digital’s Azziana Solomon contributed to this report.
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