As Iranian women bare their heads and burn Islamic veils in repressed demonstrations across the country, hopes and emotions are also rising among people living abroad.

Several people have died in protests that broke out after Iranian authorities announced the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16.

Amini, who hails from the northeastern province of Kurdistan, was arrested by the Islamic Republic’s feared vice squad, which enforces the strict dress code for women.

Activists say she died after a fatal blow to the head, a report denied by authorities, who have promised an investigation.

“(She) went to Tehran to visit her family. I told my mom it could easily have been me, my sister, or my cousins,” said Sara, a 48-year-old teacher who lives in France and likes many others. The woman interviewed asked not to use her last name publish.

“This girl wasn’t even an activist, just a regular girl like me… That’s what’s different this time around. It’s what affected and shocked people,” she added.

Sara nervously recalls being arrested by the vice squad on a trip to Iran when she was in her 30s.

She was being held in the same Iranian detention center as Amini and was “very scared”.

Iranians, including women, have staged high-profile anti-regime demonstrations before, most notably in 2009.

But “what’s unique about these protests is that women are taking the lead,” said Azadeh Kian, a sociology professor specializing in Iran at Paris Cite University.

“Economic crisis, unemployment and political immobility” have been the focus of demonstrations over the past five years, Kian said.

“But this time we not only hear protests against the general situation in the country, but also for women’s rights. This is an important change.”

Videos posted to social media have documented many women participants in demonstrations shedding their veils to reveal their hair and angrily waving their hats.

They chant slogans including “Woman, Life, Freedom!”

In Kurdistan province in particular, women “have burned their veils to burn the regime’s ideological foundations,” Kian said. “It’s a very powerful symbol”.

Other women have posted videos of themselves cutting their hair in protest.

“My friends and I are all very sad. We suffer for all women in Iran,” said Narges Mirnezhad, a 37-year-old artist living in Strasbourg, eastern France.

Several of Mirnezhad’s friends were arrested Tuesday night after joining demonstrations and have been in detention ever since.

“Many girls” burned their veils at Tehran University on Wednesday, she said.

Under the vice squad, Iranian women are required to cover their hair. They are also forbidden from wearing coats that do not reach below the knee, tight trousers, jeans with holes or brightly colored outfits.

Sara recalls her accusers attacking her for her short pants and missing socks.

She was taken in a minibus to the detention center, where women were held in underground cells.

“I was scared because I had heard rumors of violence.

In Sara’s case, her mother was able to free her around midnight on the day of her arrest, although she had to leave her ID until her daughter completed a one-hour “behaviour correction” class.

Sara said there has been “a build-up of repression for 43 years” since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.

“It’s like a pressure cooker and now it’s exploded. I hope he will continue,” she said. “Women say they don’t want any of that anymore”.

She believes the women joining today’s demonstrations are mostly “young, in their 20s, with no fear and so much hope”.

Outside the United Nations building in New York, 44-year-old health worker Fereshteh took part in a loud protest “to support Iranians in Iran who are fighting for their rights and risking their lives in the process”.

Women in Iran “burn their veils in front of the police, which means so much when dealing with murderers. They’re risking their lives, which means they’re done and so fed up with this crazy regime that’s in power,” she added.

In Geneva, 63-year-old Azadeh demonstrated in front of the UN headquarters.

“We have an anger that we can’t really control,” she said, thinking of her family, who still live in Iran.

“The veil shouldn’t be compulsory anymore. We should be free!” She said.

“Iranians are very angry. They have dared to say they are fed up” with the vice police and other forms of oppression, Azadeh added, asking, “When will they stop?”