'This time it's different'

Activists in Britain hope time is up for the regime

- Chris Osuh Community affairs correspondent

In Europe, women are running countries. Women in Iran deserve that. They have always been a leading part of the resistance," said Diana Nammi, a London campaigner against autocracy in Iran.

In the UK, as in Iran, women's rights activists, alongside young campaigners, are at the forefront of the fight to shape a new direction for the country after decades of repression.

Now, with mass protests engulfing Iran, hopes are high among British Iranians that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's theocracy is finally about to be toppled.

Laila Jazayeri, the director of the Association of Anglo-Iranian Women in the UK, is among exiles who took to the streets of London for rallies at the weekend.

"A pluralistic, a secular, a nonnuclear Iranian republic, it is achievable. The people of Iran are fed up of monarchical and clerical dictatorship," said Jazayeri during a protest outside Downing Street where women shouted for democracy and freedom.

Opposition campaigners say the unrest has spread to 192 Iranian cities. Dozens have been killed and thousands detained as the authorities try to cling to power.

Jazayeri hopes the dissident politician Maryam Rajavi will become modern Iran's first female leader. "This time it's different because [the uprising] is well organised," she said.