'Blow to the head' killed Mahsa Amini, says cousin

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq-Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini was visiting Teheran with her family when she encountered the morality police and died after a "violent blow to the head", her cousin living in Iraq said.

"Jhina's death has opened the doors of popular anger," said Mr Erfan Salih Mortezaee, 34, using Ms Amini's Kurdish first name and referring to the wave of protests that her death has sparked.

In a phone call after the young woman's death was announced, Ms Amini's mother told him what happened when her 22-year-old daughter was detained, Mr Mortezaee said. AFP spoke with him in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, bordering Ms Amini's native Kurdistan province in Iran, where he has been living for a year.

There, he joined Iranian Kurdish nationalist group Komala, which has conducted a long-running cross-border insurgency against the Teheran authorities, seeking autonomy for Kurdish-populated areas of north-western Iran.

Mr Mortezaee said that before starting university, Ms Amini had gone to Teheran with her parents and 17-year-old brother to visit relatives. On Sept 13, Ms Amini, her brother and female relatives went out in the capital. On leaving the Haghani underground station, "the morality police stopped them, arresting Jhina and her relatives", Mr Mortezaee said.