Iranian authorities have denied all involvement in Mahsa Amini’s demise. (File)
Sulaimaniyah:
Iranian Kurdish lady Mahsa Amini was visiting Tehran together with her household when she encountered the infamous morality police and died after a “violent blow to the top”, her cousin residing in Iraq stated.
“Jhina’s demise has opened the doorways of fashionable anger,” stated Erfan Salih Mortezaee, 34, utilizing Amini’s Kurdish first identify and referring to the continued wave of protests that her demise has sparked.
In a telephone name after the younger lady’s demise was introduced, Amini’s mom instructed him what occurred when her 22-year-old daughter was detained, Mortezaee stated.
AFP spoke with Mortezaee in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan area — bordering Amini’s native Kurdistan province in Iran — the place he has been residing for a 12 months.
There, he joined Iranian Kurdish nationalist group Komala, which has performed a long-running cross-border insurgency towards the Tehran authorities, searching for autonomy for Kurdish-populated areas of northwestern Iran.
Mortezaee stated that, earlier than beginning college, Amini had gone to Tehran together with her mother and father and 17-year-old brother to go to family.
On September 13, Amini, her brother and her feminine family went out within the capital.
On leaving the Haghani underground station, “the morality police stopped them, arresting Jhina and her family,” Mortezaee stated.
Sporting army fatigues and talking at a Komala base within the Sulaimaniyah space of northern Iraq, Mortezaee stated Amini’s brother tried to inform the police that they have been “in Tehran for the primary time” and “didn’t know the (native) traditions”.
However his appeals fell on deaf ears.
Beatings
“The police officer instructed him, ‘We’re going to take her in, instil the foundations in her and train her how one can put on the hijab and how one can gown’,” Mortezaee stated.
Amini was “dressed usually. Like all girls in Iran, she was sporting the hijab,” her cousin added.
In Iran, girls — no matter their religion — are required to cowl their hair, and the morality police bans them from sporting coats above the knee, tight trousers, vibrant colors or torn denims.
The code has been extensively skirted for many years, significantly in main cities, however there have been periodic crackdowns.
“The cops hit Jhina, they hit her in entrance of her brother,” Mortezaee stated.
“They slapped her, they hit her fingers and legs with a baton,” stated Mortezaee, including that in addition they sprayed her brother within the face with pepper spray.
Jhina and her family have been pressured into the morality police van and brought to a station on Vezarat Road.
The beatings continued through the journey, Mortezaee stated.
“After they hit her within the head with the baton, she misplaced consciousness,” he stated. “One of many officers stated: ‘She’s placing on an act’.”
After they arrived, it was at the very least one other hour and a half earlier than she was taken to a Tehran hospital, regardless of pleas from her family, Mortezaee stated.
After three days in a coma, she was pronounced useless.
‘Higher life’
Amini’s mom stated docs on the hospital instructed the household that her daughter “had acquired a violent blow to the top”, Mortezaee stated.
Iranian authorities have denied all involvement in Amini’s demise, which has sparked 12 consecutive nights of protests and a safety crackdown.
“What is going on in Kurdistan and in every single place else in Iran is fashionable anger towards the Islamic republic’s regime, towards the dictatorship,” Mortezaee stated.
At the least 76 folks have been killed within the demonstrations, in line with the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), whereas Iran’s semi-official Fars information company has put the depend at “round 60”.
Authorities stated Monday that they had made greater than 1,200 arrests.
The protests come at a very delicate time for Iran’s management when the nation’s financial system stays mired in a disaster largely brought on by US sanctions over its nuclear programme.
The nation has seen protests in recent times, together with lethal demonstrations in November 2019 over gasoline value rises.
However this time “girls are taking the lead and are actively collaborating within the protests”, Mortezaee stated.
“Ladies are collaborating within the demonstrations courageously and are taking to the streets, day and night time,” he stated.
“We the youth know that if this regime falls, a greater life awaits us.”
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)