Thousands Flee Iran as Noose Tightens

WSJ ^

[nuconvert]

NEVSEHIR, Turkey -- Sadegh Shojai fled Iran after government agents raided his Tehran apartment, seizing his computer and 700 copies of a book he published on staging revolutions.

Now, he and his wife spend their days in this isolated Turkish town in a cramped, coal-heated apartment that lacks a proper toilet. But Mr. Shojai, 28 years old, continues to churn out articles on antigovernment Web sites about Iranian political prisoners, and helps to link students in Tehran with fellow students in Europe.

"I feel very guilty that I have abandoned my friends and countrymen, so I make up for it by burying myself in activism here," he says.

He's part of a small but spreading refugee exodus of businesspeople, dissidents, college students, journalists, athletes and other elite Iranians that is transforming the global face of Iran's resistance movement.

"Because of new technology and the Internet, prominent figures of the opposition can be more effective outside of Iran and do things they wouldn't be able to do there," says Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University. People staying behind "are ridiculed and sidelined," or thrown in jail.

The United Nations says more than 4,200 Iranians world-wide have sought refugee status since Iran's controversial June presidential vote and bloody street violence. This provincial Turkish town -- near the famed carved-rock dwellings of Cappadocia that harbored outcasts in millennia past -- is home to 543 Iranians seeking asylum.

After sometimes spending weeks hiding in and hopping between safe houses, Iranians have turned up in countries as far away as Australia, Canada and Sweden. They typically seek refugee status.

[Candor7]

Well, we conservatives should take note. Maybe we will need to seek political assylum in Canada and Mexico if we don’t pull these Lefty Freaks out of office.

[Dallas59]

I won’t do that...WOLVERINES!

[Candor7]

Then we stand and DELIVER! Sommething the Iranians don;t know how to do.

[Dallas59]

Locked and loaded....

[Larry381]

What a change for a person like a Reagan to help clean up this miasma in Iran. That being said the code of Free Freeper has long been past the prime time of Free Freepublic before it's too late.
I estimate at least 10% of FR code id nownoutb of balance.

[Candor7]

Me too, courtesy of High Standard Arms, Texas.

I bought it because High Standard makes all of its HS 15A carbines with heavy barrels, same as for their full auto fire military models.

Thank you Texas!

Its a tack driver.

[Thank You Rush]

“”That being said the code of Free Freeper has long been past the prime time of Free Freepublic before it’s too late.
I estimate at least 10% of FR code id nownoutb of balance.””

HUH?

[The Cajun]

I estimate at least 10% of FR code id nownoutb of balance.””

HUH?

Obviously you didn't receive the new decoder ring yet ;^)

[sionnsar]

ping

[guitarplayer1953]

Take over a nice warm state and secede from the union. I hear TX is a nice place to live and with the right people down there I bet the border could be closed of if it was a sovereign nation unto it self.

[Candor7]

I have a permamant invite to Helotes in Bexar County near San Antonio. I really like Texas. The people I met there are great!

Wouldn’t be hard to move to the Lone Star State.