Golaleh Mahmoudi Azar

Golaleh (Maryam) Mahmoudi Azar was a 26-year-old Kurdish woman from Mahabad who had been living in Tehran with her husband, who is from Paveh in Kermanshah Province. Hengaw Organization for Human Rights verified that on the evening of Thursday, 8 January 2026, she was killed by direct gunfire from Iranian government forces during protests in Tehran.

Her body was returned to Mahabad and buried under a heavy security presence and enforced silence. Hengaw sources emphasized that the name “Rozhin,” Golaleh’s sister, was incorrectly reported elsewhere as the victim. She was among five Kurdish people killed in Tehran that evening, including Siavash Shirzad, Erfan Alizadeh, and Ali Abbasi. Families searched among hundreds of bodies in Tehran morgues; Hengaw reported families paid one billion tomans but refused forced televised confessions blaming protesters.