Photo: Hengaw
Diana Bahador
دیانا بهادر
2026
- Taken
- 9 January 2026
- Age
- 19 years old
- From
- Gorgan, Golestan
Kept on this phone only. Nothing is sent.
Their life
Diana was a 19-year-old Turkmen woman from Gonbad-e Kavus in Golestan, and one of the best-known faces of motorcycle sport in Iran. In the riding community everyone knew her as "Baby Rider".
She rode a heavy motorcycle, and on Instagram, where she was followed by well over a hundred thousand people, she shared her rides and her travels across the country.
How the regime took them
On the night of 9 January 2026, during the protests in Gorgan, Diana was hit by two live rounds fired by the regime's forces and died. Her family searched for two days before her body was handed to them on 11 January. The authorities pressed them to say she had died in a road accident, and that same night a story posted on her Instagram page said her death was an accident and asked people not to make an issue of it.
State media later gave a different name and a later date and said she had crashed her motorcycle. Hengaw, HRANA and Iran Human Rights all record her as killed in the crackdown in Gorgan on 9 January.
