BEIRUT – Women, children and students took to the streets in Syria on Wednesday, lending their voices to a monthlong uprising that President Bashar Assad insists is the work of a foreign conspiracy.

The protest movement is posing an increasing threat to Assad’s iron rule as it attracts an ever-wider following.

“We will not be humiliated!” shouted some 2,000 women and children who blocked a main coastal road in northeastern Syria, where security forces and pro-government gunmen have cracked down on dissent in recent days. “Yesterday they raided our home in Bayda and took away my father,” said one of the protesters, a 21-year-old woman. “I’m not leaving here until they return him to us.”

In an apparent attempt to calm the women’s demonstration, authorities released about 100 of the detainees and paraded them in front of the protesters, prompting cheers and cries of triumph, a witness said.

Residents and activists said hundreds of men, young and old, were arrested Tuesday when security forces and pro-government gunmen attacked the villages in northeastern Syria.

Also Wednesday, about 500 students gathered at Damascus University in the capital and in Aleppo University in the north as young people joined the protests.