Iranian photojournalist Hasan Sarbakhshian is among the dozens of journalists who fled Iran following last year’s disputed presidential vote. Go to Radio Free Europe.

Iran’s Minister of Justice announced last Wednesday that plans are under way to form a special court for Iranians abroad and that the court will commence work soon. During an appearance at High Council of Coordination with Iranians Abroad, Morteza Bakhtiari said on Sunday that the Council has appropriate authorities based on Articles 127 and 128 of Iranian Constitution.

According to Article 127 of Iranian Constitution, the President can, based on necessity and with approval from the Cabinet, appoint a special representative or representatives with specific authorities. In such cases, decisions made by the representative or representatives will be the same as those made by the President and the Cabinet….

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Go to ICHR Iran.

NIGDE, Turkey — Light snow was falling when the two young men set out on horseback for the border to flee Iran. By the time they were deep in the mountains, it had become a blinding blizzard, the temperature had dropped below freezing, and they were barely alive.

Hesam Misaghi and Sepehr Atefi were joining what has become an exodus of dissidents fleeing Iran’s political turmoil. For them that meant a harrowing journey through the country’s rugged northwest in the dead of winter, with the help of Kurdish smugglers.

At a river crossing, the ice broke beneath them and their horses stumbled in, soaking the two with freezing water.

“There was no feeling in my legs and hands,” recalled Misaghi, a tall, wiry 21-year-old. “I felt drunk. I didn’t know where I was. I was laughing from pain.”

Atefi, 20, spotted a van from a distance, grabbed Misaghi’s arm and dragged him toward it through the snow. “There was no life left in me to move forward, but we had to reach the highway,” he said.

The men, both Iranian human rights reporters, reached the van, begged a ride and made it to safety in Turkey.

At least 4,200 Iranians have fled their homeland since disputed presidential elections in June, according to a list compiled by activist Aida Saadat, who herself slipped across the border into Turkey in December. These refugees have scattered to the United States, Europe and Gulf nations like the United Arab Emirates.

Most of all, they have come to Turkey – around 1,150 of them, according to the U.N. refugee agency – taking advantage of the porous border and Turkey’s policy of not requiring a visa. Most of the new arrivals fled for political reasons, including those who took part in opposition protests after the vote. They bring the number of Iranians in Turkey to 4,440, as of February – including “undesirables” in the eyes of the clerical regime, such as homosexuals or members of the Bahai religion.

The danger these Iranians face back home is clear. A month after Atefi and Misaghi’s January escape, police raided their homes in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. Among the charges against them: “moharebeh,” or “waging war against God,” a crime punishable by death.

Police arrested their friend and colleague, Navid Khanjani, who was supposed to have fled with them but changed his mind at the last minute. With Khanjani’s arrest, eight people in the independent Committee of Human Rights Reporters have been jailed, and three remain in prison and could face execution.

In Turkey, the refugees are safer, but they live in limbo. Almost all brought little money and cannot work because of Turkish restrictions, so they cram into small, coal-heated apartments with minimal furniture.

Many Iranian refugees hope the UNHCR will arrange resettlement for them in the United States or Europe – a wait that could take years, as the refugee agency is also dealing with thousands of Iraqis who have fled here from their own wartorn homeland in recent years.

Go to Washington Post.

Maryam Sabri, 21, allegedly raped in detention in Iran, says she was beaten and robbed in the street in Kayseri.

Maryam Sabri, 21, says she was knocked to the ground, then kicked and punched by two men who approached her from behind. She suffered bruising to her legs and back and was robbed of her mobile phone. The incident happened last Saturday in Kayseri, where she is living while seeking asylum in the west.

The alleged incident follows complaints by other Iranian exiles that agents of the Islamic regime have tried to intimidate them into silence since they escaped to Turkey after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election. Go to Guardian.

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.

Iran’s refugee exodus is exacerbating a brain drain that has stunted the country’s development for years. Mr. Dabashi, the Columbia professor, says he has fielded hundreds of inquiries from students in Iran wanting to study overseas — more than 20 times the rate of previous years. “It’s mind-boggling how many extremely accomplished young people are trying to come abroad,” he says. Go to WSJ.