A teenage dissident trailed behind a group of smugglers in the borderlands of western Iran. For three days, Rezan trekked a rocky mountain range and walked through minefields along a winding path forged by seasoned smugglers to circumnavigate the country’s heavily armed Revolutionary Guards. It was a trip too dangerous for respite of much more than a few stolen moments at a time.

“I knew that if an officer spotted us, we would die immediately,” said the 19-year-old Iranian-Kurdish activist, whom CNN is identifying by her pseudonym Rezan for security purposes. She was traveling to the border with Iraq, one of Iran’s most militarized frontiers, where according to rights groups, many have been shot to death by Iranian security forces for crossing illegally, or for smuggling illicit goods.

She had fled her hometown of Sanandaj in western Iran where security forces were wreaking death and destruction on the protest sites. Demonstrators were arbitrarily detained, some were shot dead in front of her, she said. Many were beaten up on the streets. In the second week of the protests, security forces pulled Rezan by her uncovered hair, she said. As she was being dragged down the street, screaming in agony, she saw her friends forcefully detained and children getting beaten.

“They pulled my hair. They beat me. They dragged me,” she said, recounting the brutal crackdown in the Kurdish-majority city. “At the same time, I could see the same thing happening to many other people, including children.”

Sanandaj has seen the some of the largest protests in Iran, the biggest outside of Tehran, since the uprising began in mid-September.

Rezan said she had no choice but to take the long and perilous journey with smugglers to Iraq. Leaving Iran through the nearest official border crossing – a mere three-hour car ride away — could have led to her arrest. Staying in Sanandaj could have resulted in her death at the hands of the security forces.

“(Here) I can get my rights to live as a woman. I want to fight for the rights of women. I want to fight for human rights,” she told CNN from northern Iraq. After she arrived here earlier this month, she decided to change tack. No longer a peaceful protester, Rezan decided to take up arms, enlisting with an Iranian-Kurdish militant group that has positions in the arid valleys of Iraqi Kurdistan.