An image of Mahsa Amini at a candlelit vigil in the US following her death
(Picture: REUTERS)The family of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman whose death in police custody sparked protests across Iran, have received death threats, a relative has said.
Ms Amini, a Kurdish woman, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police in Tehran on September 16. The regime insists she was not mistreated, but family say her body showed signs of beating.
Videos have subsequently shown security officials beating and shoving female protesters, including some who have torn off their mandatory hijab.
Speaking to the BBC, Ms Amini’s cousin Erfan Mortezai said: “Our family have been under immense pressure from the Islamic Republic’s officials, so we don’t talk to human rights organisations or channels outside of Iran and inform anyone from the outside world about her passing.
“They are under Islamic Republic torture. The regime’s officials have threatened us through Instagram with fake accounts, and told the family members in Iran that if they get involved in the protests, they might be killed.”
It comes as Britain formally sanctioned the morality police and its chief, Mohammed Rostami Cheshmeh Gachi, citing their role in Ms Amini’s death.
“These sanctions send a clear message to the Iranian authorities, we will hold you to account for your repression of women and girls and for the shocking violence you have inflicted on your own people," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
Mr Mortezai, a Peshmerga fighter for Komala, an exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition party based in Iraq, said he himself had personally received death threats in the wake of Ms Amini’s death.
Referring to her by her given Kurdish name of Zhina, he said that she “was a normal person, she was not political”, and that the Iranian government has been “making up scenarios and disinformation” about her death.
Demonstrations have continued to occur in cities, towns and villages across Iran, with apparent gunshots and explosions being heard at a protest in Sanandaj, west of Tehran.
The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 2009 Green Movement protests.
Footage also appeared to show workers at the site of a major complex of refineries, crucial for Iran’s massive offshore natural gas field, protesting over her death.
Dozens of workers appeared to gather at the refineries in Asaluyeh, 575 miles south of Tehran, some chanting “shameless" and "death to the dictator".
An Oslo-based group, Iran Human Rights, estimates that at least 185 people have been killed in the nationwide demonstrations.
This includes an estimated 90 people killed in violence in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan amid demonstrations against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case.
