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RALEIGH -- About 20 people Friday chanted slogans protesting U.S. sanctions on Iran that President Obama and others say are intended to keep Iran from building nuclear arms.

At the same time that the group waved signs on a New Bern Avenue corner outside the Terry Sanford Federal Building, U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan's office was issuing a statement saying she supports sanctions and other actions in a bill moving through Congress.

The protest by a group that calls itself Raleigh-Durham Fight Imperialism-Stand Together (FIST) drew little reaction from home-bound commuters in passing cars. A few honked horns, which the protesters took as support. Sandy Irving of Raleigh, holding a sign on the New Bern Avenue side of the corner, said she had not seen any negative reactions.

The Raleigh gathering was, organizers said, part of a national "emergency demonstration" that was to happen in 79 cities.

A few Raleigh police officers on foot and on horseback watched the protest, but had no contact with the demonstrators. On a warm February afternoon, the group included young and middle-aged men and women, a stroller, a dog, a kindergarten-age child helping to color posters and a man with a vuvuzela like the horns that became known worldwide during the last World Cup soccer matches.

Hagan, in her statement, said, "It is important that we cut off resources that would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons." The legislation, she said, "is an important step in choking off funding for Iran's national oil and shipping companies and in restricting its ability to tap into electronic banking services."

The demonstrators saw it the other way around. "Who's the real threat here?" group member Andy Koch asked over a public address system. The U.S. has more nuclear weapons than any country while Iran has not yet indicated it has built a weapon, Koch argued.

Raleigh-Durham FIST said the groups organizing around the country agreed that financial sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Iran now are "an act of war aimed at the Iranian people."

Hagan said the legislation includes provisions to broaden President Obama's authority to impose sanctions, require companies who shares trade on U.S. stock exchanges to report "Iran-related activity" to the Securities and Exchange Commission and penalize U.S.-based companies if their foreign subsidiaries engage in "certain Iran-related activities."