THE TELEGRAPH: When she saw the browbeaten features of her younger sister confessing at a show trial on state television, Sepideh Pouraghaie knew she had to flee Iran.
With her passport confiscated by the authorities for political reasons, the quick route out of the country - a flight from Tehran's gleaming new international airport - was impossible.
Instead, she was forced to gamble on a perilous mountain escape to the comparative safety of northern Iraq, escorted by Kurdish guerrillas on horseback.
The rocky byways of the Kurdish mountains that straddle Iran and Iraq have long been used by smugglers, bandits and separatists to evade the watchful eyes of state authority. But over the past four months, the smuggling gangs' regular trade in Afghan opium and bootleg alcohol has expanded to include a steady trickle of Iranian dissidents and journalists desperate to escape a brutal crackdown.
Accompanied by Kurdish tribesmen in traditional baggy trousers and bright floral cummerbunds, would-be escapees are led along secret pathways at the dead of night, negotiating terrain that is as hazardous as it is beautiful.
Sometimes they are forced to skirt the concrete machine gun emplacements of Iranian border guards, at others they have to wade across freezing mountain streams or negotiate sheer precipices. In perhaps the most ingenious smugglers' trick, one fleeing Iranian recently crawled across the border hidden in a flock of sheep, mimicking the manner in which the Greek mythical figure Odysseus escaped from the Cyclops' cave.
Those who have made the hazardous journey include opposition activists, human rights campaigners and reporters, who have been fleeing Iran in such numbers that the press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders has described it as the biggest exodus of journalists since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Hundreds more are believed to have lost their jobs - some for holding the wrong opinions, some because their newspapers were shut down by authorities. >>> Angus McDowall | Sunday, November 08, 2009
