The death of 22 year old Masa Amini after being arrested by the morality police has sparked the biggest public challenge to Iran's clerical leaders in over a decade, dozens of protesters have been killed by security forces all for demanding basic rights.

Their defiance in the face of the brutal crackdown is being met with solidarity around the world, these university students in Iran are chanting women life and freedom.

It's a slogan that's touching the hearts of many worldwide, including members of the european parliament.

The hands of the regime of the mullahs in Iran is stained with blood.

Neither history nor Allah or God almighty will forgive you for the crimes against humanity that you are committing against your own citizens until the woman of Iran are free.

We are going to stand with you GN GN as a g women life.

Freedom Friends stars like Juliet Ganache are also extending their support with this symbolic act in Iran, the clerical leadership says Western enemies are behind the anti government demonstrations.

These people have taken to the streets to support Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini and the country's strict dress code.

My job was the excuse of our enemies to destroy our unity.

The U.

S.

And Israel are the root of all this unrest just because they cannot fight us.

They are trying to attack us by creating internal problems.

But the anti government protests in Iran show no sign of letting up four weeks on this latest video posted online appears to show female students heckling a member of Iran's passage force, the much feared paramilitary organization is blamed for the violent crackdown on the demonstrations.

The death of Masa Amini has clearly exposed the fault lines that exist in the Islamic country and Tehran's willingness to brutally crush any opposition that challenges its power.

Let's bring in prison.

She's a human rights researcher and writer focused on Iran Miss Prison.

Welcome to the Day.

You have extensively studied women's rights movements in Iran in that context.

Where do you place the current protests?

Yes, thank you.

I think that women's rights movement in Iran a isn't basically it's over 100 years old.

So it's uh I see the movements that we see today on the streets, the protests as a continuation of many years of resistance and struggling against the discriminatory policies of Islamic republic, but also a continuation of the protest movement against the government.

Uh it's violation of multiple multiplicity of rights that we've seen in terms of protest since uh 2017, 2018 in terms of women's participation.

You see women in many protests in contemporary Iran and quite actively so, but I think in its being so gendered this time and women's rights, not not only being about women's But being so intertwined with the political grievances and political demands of an entire nation is unique.

Uh so, for example, in the revolution, women were present in the street the revolution of 1979 but may say that there were no such gendered demands from the previous uh previous government in Iran.

Would you say that women taking the lead in this protest movement is a sign of a, of a greater shift in Iranian society?

I think that women taking the lead in this protest is a sign of Iran's the Iranian people's maturity.

So women and Iranian people that have reached the point that they do not think that freedom is attainable without women's rights and women's feeling dignified in Iran and that women's rights is not attainable under the current regime under the Islamic republic.

So therefore women's rights and freedom and along with it, a series of other rights, socio economic and civil political rights have come together on the street with women at the center of it, demanding for essentially what I think is a better future and more dignified future.

And also highlighting here the role of the youth alongside women.

It is very dangerous for those participating in the protest to publicly talk about their part in the movement and the repression they've suffered at the hands of the authorities.

You're in Portugal but I bet you're in touch with a lot of people back home.

Would you mind telling us what you're hearing from friends and activists in Iran.

Yes, what I am mostly in of is uh the ordinary people who before and for example on my social media have never seen them putting anything political remotely political.

Um, you know, even posting, for example, like a letter that they have received from the court to attend as a result of having attended the protest or very bluntly, you know, posting anti government slogans and and so on whenever they have access to the very limited internet um activists in particular, um, in a very difficult situation because the Iranian regime is not only arresting people who are in the street, they're actually going after people that they consider maybe influential in the expansion of these protests, whether they're journalists, authors, activists and so on and they arrest them from home.

So, for example, I know a few activists personally who are currently in jail and nobody knows of their exact whereabouts this is currently a leaderless movement.

Is that an advantage or a disadvantage?

I would say it's yet to be seen.

But it has its pros and cons what I think is is so so hopeful about this movement is that it's so grassroots.

It's so, it's so organic and I think that's what makes it um very powerful, very collective in a way.

Um, in terms of its not having a leader.

My worry is because of the very systematic and systemic repression and the violence of the Islamic republic's against the people against the protesters.

The use of lethal force event.

Um, if there was a leader, maybe there there could be more uh strategy on what's next.

But at the same time I feel that we have to trust those incredible young leaders on the ground uh and just trust that they are they're very strategic about what they're doing and that they know better than us what their next moves will be and to honor and respect whatever it is that they will do next.

For example, they have taken the protest on two strikes, I think there's a lot of wisdom behind that and that leadership, it just may not be individual based leadership.

It's more like a collective grassroots level leadership.

How important is it for this grassroots movement that it be covered by the media around the world?

I think it's critical, it's absolutely critical because my my the way I talk about it is that why is the Islamic Republic shutting down the internet restricting the internet so seriously and so severely every time there is a protest in recent years in Iran because they don't want the world to know because they want to be able to kill people without the world knowing about it.

And so they don't want the world to watch and when the world watches.

I think it does in the long run give some level of protection to the individuals who are risking their lives.

Um some I mean at least that there is a little bit of a fear than in the Islamic Republic, that you know that that what they're doing will have consequences.

But also you know Iranian women, youth and Iranian people really want to be heard by the world because they don't think that they're going to ever be heard by their own government.

And so if the world hears it, perhaps places like the U.

N.

And other multilateral organizations, countries like Germany could think more seriously about holding the Islamic Republic's accountable for its atrocities.

Human rights researcher as a report on the protest in Iran.

Thanks a lot.