The longest-running rallies against Iran’s theocracy in years are now in their fourth week. They erupted on Sept. 17 following the funeral of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in the hands of Iran’s notorious morality police. Amini was taken into custody for violating restrictive Islamic clothing standards for women.

Protests have expanded across the country since then and have been greeted with a harsh response, with dozens of people dead and hundreds jailed. As stated by CBS News recent recordings demonstrate that, like in previous rallies, the majority of protestors are women.

On Oct. 1, footage on Iranian social media showed students protesting on the campus of Al-Zahra University in Tehran, a day after students protested against Iran’s president during a visit there.

Colleges and secondary schools around the country have become battlegrounds, with women and girls removing their compulsory headscarves, known as hijabs.

Different methods of civil disobedience have evolved, including citizens chanting from roofs and prominent personalities speaking out in support of the marchers.

Cars filled the streets quickly after news of the crackdown on students emerged Oct. 1, horns screaming in support of protestors as the battle unfolded inside the institution, recognized for training Iran’s best and brightest pupils.

On Oct. 2, protests started in cities across Iran. A mob set fire to a police kiosk in Tehran’s bazaar, a historic stronghold of Iran’s authorities. The following evening, anti-government marches gathered a sizable throng in the capital’s central Naziabad district, according to social media accounts. In response to the ongoing turmoil, authorities have targeted notable Iranians who have shown support for the demonstrations.

Protests against the administration have also reached the Islamic Republic’s power strongholds, notably the Shia holy towns of Mashhad and Qom. Ethnic minorities, particularly Kurds in the country’s north and northwest and Baloch in the southeast, have also launched rallies, facing what look to be some of the worst crackdowns, with hundreds murdered according to CBS News.

María Briones Domínguez, a SUNY Oswego student from Spain majoring in political science and international relations, is not surprised by the riots. Briones believes that the women of Iran are fighting for their rights and their freedom, so the violent protests are the only way they have to make their voice louder.

“Iran’s state is one of the most harmful regimes for women in the world. Women have no rights nor freedom,” Briones said. “Women are fighting for their place in the country; they want to be listened [to] and they want to have the same opportunities as other women of western countries have.”

The writer of “Persepolis” Marjane Satrapi, the novel about an Iranian girl’s life before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film, has called Iranian demonstrators beautiful and inspiring.

Satrapi told The Guardian that the rallies sweeping the country were reenacting history. What she lived is what the youth is living now, and she hopes that the situation will go towards something beautiful that she describes as freedom and democracy.

Satrapi appoints the big difference between the protests made during her time and the current ones. Now the men are supporting the women, they do not walk alone. She describes how beautiful it is to see both working to the same path.

Women in Iran’s streets wore both the headscarf and the newest Western trends in the decades preceding the 1979 Islamic Revolution. However, immediately after the revolution, the new Islamic dictatorship decreed that women and children, as young as five-years-old, had to cover their hair and bodies in public. The hijab was proclaimed by hardliners to defend women’s dignity, but for many demonstrators, it is a symbol of tyranny.

A different approach to the situation of Iran is explained by Majda Moustaid, an Autonomous University of Barcelona student from Morocco majoring in political science and public management and international relations. According to Moustaid, the Iran protests in the country have been introduced for Western countries as a consequence of the Ukrainian war. Iran is Russia’s ally, so Moustaid argues that the riots in Iran are more of a political weapon to debilitate Russia rather than real efforts of improving the lives of Muslim women.

“The Iranian problem is far from being caused by the hijab, no matter how much Western civil society wants to make it look like it does not correspond to reality,” Moustaid said. “It was not long ago when three French nationals were found going to Iran to revolutionize the women there. If instead of feminist women we were talking about Muslims going to Yemen or Syria, they would have been called terrorists. Because that is what they are. They seek to destabilize a sovereign state. By this I am not saying that Iran is an exemplary country but let us not forget the closeness between Iran and Russia, and the war in geopolitics that we are living through. The geopolitical scenario responds in the local scenario and here little or nothing has to do with women or the hijab…”

One more different perspective can be found in Adam Addami’s thoughts, a Moroccan Youtuber that creates content related to global issues interviewing people from different places such as streets or Universities. According to Addami, what is going on in Iran cannot be justified from a Muslim perspective.

“The Shias, the most predominant Muslim community in Iran, have a wrong perspective of Islam, Addami said. “They are very sexist, the same as the Arabs are. For them Islam is just a tool for controlling people and oppressing minorities or vulnerable collectives as women. Islam must be a spiritual approach and not a political one, it allows you to make the best decisions related to your lifestyle, your mental health, money… What is happening in Iran is not a representation of the Muslim community but a representation of how some powerful people try to confront or control some collectives using religion as a Trojan Horse to impose their political aspirations.”

Dr. Lisa Glidden is a professor in the political science department at SUNY Oswego who has worked with Brooklyn Law School, University of Washington and is currently the director of the global and international studies program at SUNY Oswego. She said that she has been following the riots in Iran recently and that there are various reasons for why the protests broke out.

“As someone who studies social movements, I’ve been following the protests in Iran over the last few weeks,” Glidden said. The immediate factor that led to these protests was Mahsa Amini’s death while in custody after her arrest by the morality police for not wearing a hijab appropriately. There were several other underlying factors and tensions that have been simmering for years, including economic and political discontent.”

Glidden said the recent riots are different from the ones from 2009 because of how direct the outcrys are from the people.

“The last significant protests in Iran took place during 2009 [the Green Revolution],” Glidden said. “These protests are different in a few ways. They are explicitly calling out the country’s leader and not just calling for reform. These protests, as I understand it, are also taking place in smaller cities throughout the country.”

Furthermore, she explained that the international community needs to support those protesting by providing internet access and virtual private networks as this is the only way the message of the protests can be broadcasted to the world outside of Iran.

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