Mahsa Amini “wasn’t politicized” but “wanted to be independent”, says her cousin

Erfan Mortezayi receives us in combat uniform in the suburbs of the Iraqi Kurdish town of Suleimaniye. He lives there in exile 200 kilometers from Saghez? where his cousin Mahsa Amini was buried after being beaten to death by Iranian vice police who accused her of breaking the dress code. He calls her “Jhina”the Kurdish first name she was banned from wearing in Iran.“When someone in your family is killed by authorities of the Islamic Republic and dies for nothing, it’s a bad feeling, he confides, I was angry”.

>>> Death of Mahsa Amini: what are the morality police, which sow terror in Iran?

Five weeks after the murder of “Jhina”, starting point ofa wave of demonstrations against the regimethe family of the young woman “is in a very bad mental state, she is under pressure”, explains his cousin.

“Islamic Republic officials did not allow his family to visit his grave. They threatened his brother with arrest.”

Erfan Mortezayi, cousin of Mahsa Amini

at franceinfo

At 34, Erfan Mortezayi has long been involved in the fight against the Iranian regime. Peshmerga, he fought in Iraq against Daesh and against militias supported by Tehran. A struggle he paid for with his freedom, forced to return to Iran in 2019. At the bedside of his dying mother, he was arrested: “I was detained for two years in the prisons of Saghez and Sanandaj, and tortured for several months by the secret services. After serving my sentence, I contacted my brigade when I got out of prison. They told me that it would be better if I left Iran to continue my fight. I’m proud to be a peshmerga here again.”

very committed, Erfan Mortezayi explains that this was not the case of his cousin Mahsa. According to him, the 22-year-old Iranian longed for a normal life. She had just been accepted into law school at university. “Mahsa was not a politicized person, let’s be clear. Mahsa was a girl who loved music, art, dancing. Mahsa was a girl who wanted to be economically independent. She had opened a store in Saghez which sold women’s clothing.”

As student protests continue in Iran on Saturday, November 5, accompanied by strikes in some businesses, Erfan Mortezayi believes that there is no turning back for the Kurdish minority and Iranian women. He assures her, her cousin has become the symbol that will bring down the Islamic regime.