Mahsa Amini, the young woman whose death after the arrest of the Iranian police sparked the biggest protests in Iran in years, was "tortured and insulted": she speaks to Sky News Uk, for the first time with a Western media, the cousin, Erfan Mortezaei,
and tells what happened to the girl and how she became the "voice of the Iranian people's anger".
Mortezaei, a political activist and Peshmerga fighter who lives in Iraq near the Iranian border, recounted the hours leading up to the death and first of all
the arrest.
The 22-year-old was arrested by the Morale Police because she was wearing the hijab improperly, it was evidently too loose.
Speaking to Sky News from Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, her cousin said that the young woman had gone shopping in Tehran with some relatives, including her brother Ashkan.
The group was stopped by the Morale Police: "When they saw Mahsa and others they decided that her hijab was not correct
."
"Ashkan tried to explain to them that they weren't in their hometown, they didn't know Tehran, he demanded that he be taken into consideration and begged that (the girl) not be taken away.
In the confrontation, the police officers sprayed the pepper spray in Ashkan's face and forced Mahsa into the van to take her to the Morality Police Station. "Mortezaei explained that it was a witness who was in the van telling the family what happened next:
"On the way to the police station she was tortured and insulted." When she arrived, Amini began to lose her sight and passed out; but it took 30 minutes for the ambulance to
reach her and a 'hour and a half before he got to the hospital.
"There is a report from the hospital in Kasra (in Tehran) which says that when she reached the hospital she was already medically dead: she had a concussion from a blow to the head
."
Mortezaei added that there was pressure on the family by the authorities to appear on Iranian TV and in any case to prevent her parents and brother from speaking openly;
the young man finally stressed that, contrary to what some media close to the ayatollahs' government wrote, Amini had no involvement in politics.
"But Mahsa's death has become a spark for this protest movement in Iran and Kurdistan
. "
The protest for the death of the young woman has resulted in the most serious protests ever recorded in the country in years, dozens of people killed and the authorities trying, so far unsuccessfully, to suppress the riots.