The circle of relatives of Mahsa Amini, 22, who died in the custody of Iran’s morality police, speaks out as anti-government protests over her death intensify.
As the country awaits the coroner’s final report, Amini’s father said he beat up the moral police, those guilty of enforcing Iran’s strict dress code. Amini’s helmet was reportedly too loose when she was detained.
Her cousin, Erfan Mortezaei, who lives in exile in Iraq, believes she tortured.
“She tortured, according to eyewitnesses,” he said. He tortured in the van after his arrest, then tortured in the police station for half an hour, then hit his head and collapsed. “
Thousands of others paid their respects at Amini’s funeral in western Iran.
The Iranian accuses the West, especially the United States, of fueling the protesters’ fury. The Foreign Ministry said Tehran would respond to “American violations of its sovereignty. “
In reaction to Amini’s death, protesters stoned photographs of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The old dictator is in his last days,” Mortezaei was asked what he would say to Khamenei.
The unrest was the largest to rock Iran since 2019. The women, who angrily oppose Iran’s inflexible law, illegally remove head-covering veils and burn them. Men join them in protesting against a regime that everyone denounces as repressive.
At least 75 other people have been killed, according to Iran’s human rights watchdog, and that number is expected to rise.