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Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini was visiting Tehran with her family when she encountered the notorious 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 Erfan Salih Mortezaee, 34, using Amini's Kurdish first name and referring to the ongoing wave of protests that her death has sparked.

In a phone call after the young woman's death was announced, Amini's mother told him what happened when her 22-year-old daughter was detained, Mortezaee said.

AFP spoke with Mortezaee in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region -- bordering 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 Tehran authorities, seeking autonomy for Kurdish-populated areas of northwestern Iran.

Read more: Explained: Iran's morality police, hijab and violent protests over woman's death

Mortezaee said that, before starting university, Amini had gone to Tehran with her parents and 17-year-old brother to visit relatives.

On September 13, 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," Mortezaee said.

Wearing military fatigues and speaking at a Komala base in the Sulaimaniyah area of northern Iraq, Mortezaee said Amini's brother tried to tell the police that they were "in Tehran for the first time" and "did not know the (local) traditions".

But his appeals fell on deaf ears.

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Mahsa Amini died of 'blow to the head': family in Iraq - Hindustan Times

In 2018, Peace Winds began a project to upgrade shelters in four Syrian refugee camps in Erbil Governorate, Iraq with a grant from the U.S. Department of States Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). Since 2020, Peace Winds has expanded similar activities with this grant to two Syrian refugee camps in Duhok Governorate. In 2022, we assisted another 1,074 families, and by August 2022, we had upgraded shelters of a total of 3,883 Syrian refugee households, providing them more durable futures and increased safety and dignity.

Since 2022, because this project focuses on adults and children with disabilities, older persons, pregnant women, and other refugees facing barriers to mobility, Peace Winds teams have also improved public infrastructure in Syrian refugee camps in Erbil. In 2022, access to another 26 camp public facilities was improved, bringing the total to 68 camp infrastructure improvements by August 2022.

The shelter and infrastructure upgrades utilize the cash-for-work model successfully implemented by Peace Winds in other projects to provide income opportunities, develop skills, and increase self-reliance. Rather than upgrading the shelters through local contractors, Peace Winds utilizes a cash-for-work approach that involves the targeted households in the process, providing them with opportunities to earn income, enhance skills, and take more ownership of their shelter upgrades. Households that cannot or choose not to perform the upgrade work themselves can choose other skilled or unskilled workers from the community or through the job centers in each camp. In 2022, 4,290 workers (978 of whom were women) were engaged in a cash-for-work activities.

On September 12, 2022, Peace Winds held a legacy event to present this project activities and achievements, inviting stakeholders from PRM, local authorities, camp managers of supported camps, UN agencies, NGOs, and business sectors. In addition to the presentation of the project activities and achievements, we held panel discussions, bringing together prominent actors from the regions humanitarian front with a focus on enabling livelihood and economic opportunities for displaced communities. The panel discussions provided an opportunity for a lively exchange of opinions with active participation from the audience.

Syrian Crisis, which began in March 2011, shows no sign of ending. There are still 250,000 Syrian refugees displaced in Kurdistan region of Iraq, where Peace Winds provides humanitarian assistance. We remain committed to improving the lives of refugee families, helping them regain the sense of safety and dignity that everyone deserves.

This project was funded by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) of U.S. Department of State and generous donations from our supporters. Thank you for your continuing support.

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[Iraq] Peace Winds Has Completed Updating the Homes of about 3900 Syrian Refugee Families - Iraq - ReliefWeb

SULIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) Dara Qureshi scrolls through the contacts on his phone, each name an alias for activists across the border in neighboring Iran, where protests have been raging for two weeks.

Qureshi, a member of one of many Iranian Kurdish opposition parties exiled in Iraq, responds to one of them, Brwa, who asks how to access Starlink, a satellite constellation operated by Elon Musks SpaceX, after the business magnate promised to allow Iranians affected by state-imposed internet restrictions to use it.

What is your advice, comrade? writes the unknown activist. Qureshi makes inquiries, knowing there are only a few precious minutes before the internet will cut out for the person on the other side.

The support that Kurdish exiles like Qureshi have given to protesters in Iran have fueled allegations by Iranian authorities that the protests, which have spread to over 40 cities, were entirely organized and buttressed by foreign elements.

But Iranian Kurdish exiles say their role is small. They say the Iranian government is trying to scapegoat them to divert attention away from the widespread anger fueling protests that erupted nationwide, have brought in multiple ethnic groups and have been focused on the governments treatment of women.

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The protests erupted after a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in custody. Morality police in the Iranian capital, Tehran, arrested her for allegedly not wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf properly.

Dara Quraishi, 39, from Bokan, Iran, poses for a photo in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq on Sept. 28, 2022. (AP/Hawre Khalid, Metrography)

This week, Iran sharply stepped up its military operations against Iraq-based Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, launching three sets of drone and missile attacks targeting their party bases in northern Iraq, killing at least nine. The strikes drew condemnation from Iraqi officials and the international community. Irans ambassador to Iraq was later summoned by the Foreign Ministry.

Iran also has cracked down on others after Aminis death, announcing Friday that it has arrested nine foreigners over the demonstrations.

The London-based Amnesty International said Friday it has acquired leaked government documents showing that Iran ordered its security forces to severely confront protesters. It said security forces have killed at least 52 people since protests over Aminis death began nearly two weeks ago.

Iranian state TV has reported that at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the demonstrations began Sept. 17. Hundreds of people have been arrested.

The Kurdish opposition parties say their reach is limited to majority Kurdish regions in western Iran.

A protester shows her support for the Iranian women outside the UN headquarters in Erbil on Sept. 24, 2022. (AP/Hawre Khalid, Metrography)

Its true the political parties here issued a call for protests, but the ones who went into the street and organized are inside Iran; it has nothing to do with party proclamations, said Rosaline Kamangir, 32, an Iranian womens rights activist and a Kurd who is regularly in touch with female protesters inside Iran.

The organizers are local, and perhaps they see eye-to-eye with the parties, ultimately they are acting based on their own beliefs, she said.

The opposition groups jointly issued calls for a general strike and protests in the western Kurdish region of Iran after the death of the 22-year-old Amini.

With her family origins in the Kurdish city of Saqqez, Aminis death has sparked particular anger in Irans Kurdish regions. Kurds refer to her by her Kurdish name, Zhina. Iranians often have an official name and another they use more regularly, and Mahsa is a Persian name on her official records.

Women chant slogans and hold up signs depicting the image of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died while in the custody of Iranian authorities, during a demonstration denouncing her death held by Iraqi and Iranian Kurds outside the UN offices in Arbil, the capital of Iraqs autonomous Kurdistan region, on September 24, 2022. (Safin Hamed/AFP)

The Kurdish majority areas are home to a decades-old separatist movement that precedes the 1979 Islamic revolution, and in past decades it has morphed into a low-level guerrilla insurgency that trades fire with Irans Revolutionary Guard.

But the protests have not taken a particularly Kurdish nationalist tone. Instead, as in the rest of the country, Amini has become a symbol of the oppression of women, rallying anger against Irans repressive policies. Many women protesters burned their hijabs during the rallies and cut off their hair.

I didnt know Mahsa, but her death pushed me to protest, said Nisreen, a woman in the Kurdish Iranian town of Bukan. Her death made me angry. Women in Iran are oppressed, we have no opportunities, the 34-year-old said, speaking to the AP via WhatsApp on condition her last name not be used, fearing reprisal.

The first protest she attended in Bukan began peacefully, then the shooting and arrests started, she said. On one occasion, the person standing next to her was hit.

Opposition parties have clout in her area, she said. But that is not why I am protesting.

Every household in Irans Kurdish regions knows someone linked to the Kurdish opposition parties in exile or has a family member who belongs to them, activists and residents said.

Banned inside Iran, the main parties based in Iraq are the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran; Komala, which has Marxist leanings; and the Kurdistan Free Life Party, or PJAK.

Everyone among us has a relative protesting in Iran, everyone knows someone who has been arrested, said Kawser Fattahi, 33, a member of Komala, her fingers trembling while holding up a cigarette. Two of her cousins in Iran were taken and havent been heard from in a week, she said. Qureshis uncle was detained during a protest in Bukan.

Kawther Fatahi, 33, from Bokan poses for a photograph on Sept. 28, 2022.. She is been living in Iraqi Kurdistan for 10 years. (AP/Hawre Khalid, Metrography)

Fattahi had been at her Komala partys headquarters compound in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Koya when it was bombed in one of the Iranian strikes. She spoke to the AP in Sulimaniyah, where she arrived Wednesday.

After the bombings, party members dispersed from their compound and took up residence with friends or in the rugged mountains.

Fattahi left her hometown Bukan in Iran a few years ago, fearing arrest because of her political activities distributing party leaflets.

Her mother and brother are both protesting, she said. The last time she saw them was when they crossed the border illegally to see her some months back.

Like most party members she keeps two phones, one for daily use in Iraq and another, to speak to relatives and party affiliates back home.

Because of the danger in crossing the border from Iraq, the opposition parties presence and activities inside Iran have always been limited. Social media is used to encourage supporters to take part in protests and conduct general strikes, said Fattahi.

Iranian women hold signs during a vigil with the Iranian American Women Foundation (IAWF) in solidarity with women in Iran who are fighting for their human rights, in West Hollywood, Calif. on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

But now, with widespread internet outages in Iran, their supporters have not been able to access social media.

Most of our communication requires the internet, said Qureshi. And when they call us, its always from an unregistered number.

Kamangir received hundreds of messages a day at the start of the protests in mid-September. Now she receives bursts of updates every two days, she said.

Today, its gone dark, she said.

More:
Kurdish exiles back Iran protests but deny orchestrating unrest - The Times of Israel

Provided by News 360 Protests in Iraq over the holding of a parliamentary session - Ameer Al-Mohammedawi/dpa

The European Union has expressed its concern on Friday about the political crisis in the country following massive protests that left at least 30 people dead in the capital, Baghdad, and called on the parties to resume dialogue in order to form a new government.

"The EU is seriously concerned about the recent political and security escalation in the country. Violence is never a solution and must not be allowed to undermine the democratic process," said EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano.

He called on the parties to denounce violent acts, as well as to exercise restraint and work to reduce tensions in order to build dialogue "in good faith", within the constitutional framework.

"In these circumstances and as Iraq marks three years of the Tishrin protest movement and almost a year of early elections in October 2021, the EU reiterates its determination to continue to support Iraq's reform path and its stability and sovereignty," he stressed.

In an attempt to unblock the political situation, Iraqi Prime Minister Mostafa al-Kazemi announced a dialogue table with political forces and parties. But the crisis worsened this week after the resignation of the Speaker of Parliament, Mohamed al Halbusi, who was nevertheless confirmed in his post.

In fact, on the same day of this parliamentary session, clashes between Iraqi security forces and 'Sadrist' demonstrators, followers of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr, were recorded in the vicinity of the Parliament.

The political deadlock is also compounded by the attacks carried out by Iran against the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which on Wednesday left at least thirteen dead and about 60 wounded, according to the regional authorities.

"The EU condemns in the strongest terms the bombing of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq this week, for which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been blamed," the European club concluded.

According to reports carried by the Kurdish television channel Rudaw, the attacks hit the headquarters of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), the Democratic Party of Kurdistan of Iran (PDKI), the Party for a Free Life for Kurdistan (PJAK) and Komala in the provinces of Suleimani and Erbil.

The PDKI claims the creation of a Kurdish entity in Iran, something the Islamic Republic has refused to do. PDKI and Revolutionary Guard fighters clashed in 2015 in northern Iran, leaving several dead and wounded on both sides.

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EU expresses concern over political crisis in Iraq and calls for renewed dialogue - msnNOW

Violent clashes between rival factions within Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim community left 23 people dead and hundreds more wounded this week. The mayhem ended abruptly when powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his followers to withdraw from locations they'd occupied in Baghdad and elsewhere, and to go home.

But while al-Sadr's command defused the deadly standoff between his backers and rival Shiite factions considered allies, if not proxies, of neighboring Iran, the underlying rift remains. Iraqis know that if it's not mended, the violence could easily erupt again, and escalate into a wider conflict.

"It was a terrifying 24 hours, we could hear bullets hitting walls and cars around our apartment," Ahmad Abdullah told CBS News. Abdulla, 36, lives with his wife and two daughters less than a mile from the heavily fortified "Green Zone" in Baghdad, where much of the government is based and which is often the focal point of unrest.

He compared the situation to the civil war that tore Iraq apart between 2003, when the U.S. invaded to topple Saddam Hussein, and 2008.

The clashes didn't take many Iraqis by surprise. The country has been mired in political turbulence since the last national elections in October 2021.

Al-Sadr's nationalist political movement, which opposes both Iran's and the West's influence in Iraq, won the most parliamentary seats in the voting, securing 73 of the total 329.

But they fell short of the two-thirds majority of seats required to form a new government unilaterally. Al-Sadr and his senior aides refused to negotiate a power-sharing unity government with the rival "Coordination Framework," an alliance of mostly Iran-aligned Shiite parties.

Al-Sadr dismissed the Framework's politicians as corrupt proxies of Iran. But without cooperation from its factions including the State of Law parliamentary bloc led by two-term former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki al-Sadr couldn't form a new government.

Iraq has been run by a "caretaker government" since 2020, even before the elections last year failed to establish a new administration.

Al-Sadr tried many times to form a government, but with the deadlock persisting, in June he told all 73 of his bloc's Members of Parliament to resign in protest. He gave his supporters a green light to occupy the parliament and block the next session of the legislature, and then said the parliament should be dissolved and new elections held.

On Monday, al-Sadr went a step further and announced his resignation from politics not for the first time. His followers took it as a battle cry, marching from the parliament they'd occupied for days toward other governmental buildings, including a presidential palace that hosts meetings for heads of state and foreign dignitaries.

They kept marching toward houses and offices of al-Sadr's rivals, and that's when it got ugly. Militias the al-Sadrists say are backed by Iran started confronting them. It escalated quickly, and soon small arms, drones and even mortars were fired.

The chaotic scenes were reminiscent of Iraq's civil war and the sectarian violence that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003. It intensified when the al-Sadr movement's military wing joined his supporters in the melee.

By the time the cleric told his backers to go home, almost two dozen people were dead in Baghdad and other Shiite-majority cities in southern Iraq.

Al-Sadr has long been one of Iraq's most influential Shiite clerics, as was his late father, from whom he inherited a large following.

Unlike many other Shiite leaders in the country, al-Sadr opposed the U.S. invasion in 2003 from the very first day. Soon after U.S. troops arrived, he declared war on them, and it was his militia that claimed many of the U.S. lives lost during the conflict.

Many Iraqis saw al-Sadr as a commander doing what their national leaders would not standing up to a foreign invader and the war gave his domestic popularity and nationalistic image a huge boost.

By 2007, al-Sadr was seen as a serious threat to the U.S. military and the Iraqi administration it backed. So, the U.S. helped usher Nouri al-Maliki into the presidency, vowing to help him take on al-Sadr and his militia.

It was the birth of the enmity between two of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders.

Al-Maliki and his Al-Dawa Party remain the second most powerful Shiite faction in Iraq, after al-Sadr's.

An audio clip of al-Maliki speaking, which was leaked recently to Iraqi media, confirms that he has connections with Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, which will only bolster the contempt for him among al-Sadr's loyal supporters.

CBS News spoke with many Iraqi politicians who suggested that the division within the country's huge Shiite population between the al-Sadrists and al-Maliki's supporters has now reached a point of no return.

If they can't agree to work together for the greater good of the country, few see much reason to hope for a stable government in the near future.

"It might look like the two groups are fighting for their election rights and constitutional deadlines, but make no mistake, neither one of them care about democracy and laws," political analyst Rostam Mahmood told CBS News.

Sources told CBS News on Wednesday that Iraq's Supreme Court would consider the al-Sadr movement's request to formally dissolve the parliament and order new elections, indicating at least some effort to ease the tension that sparked this week's violence.

But Mahmood wasn't optimistic about a lasting solution.

"Post-invasion Iraq is now run by groups and leaders that believe in completely different values than a democratic society," Mahmood said. "The idea of parachuting democracy into Iraq didn't work. Just like Afghanistan, Iraq is another failed state, and the country will fall into the wrong hands in the end."

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Iraq political clashes leave 23 dead. Here's why some fear that "just like Afghanistan, Iraq is another failed state." - CBS News