The only way to improve a country like that is through violent revolution, because you're never going to get conservative Muslims to change their views. Anything short of that is a waste of effort. If your group is a tiny minority, you have no chance of your violent revolution succeeding in Iran. Therefore, the only sane thing to do is figure out how to leave. Someone like that should be able to rightfully claim asylum somewhere, because obviously, being a religious minority in Iran can and does lead to serious oppression in the form of prison.

I don't see evidence that violent people's revolution (not the US kind of traditional polite batyle among aristocrats' armies) is more successful than a modernizing/liberalizing leader, like Russia at the end of the cold war (before Putin-types won back the elections).

Removing a government is relatively easy. Installing a new one is hard.

You just reinforced my point.

A "modernizing/liberalizing leader" doesn't work, as you just pointed out yourself with Russia. If the majority of the people aren't supportive of that, that leader will be replaced before long with a Putin-like leader. Obviously, someone in Russia in the late 80s would have been better off simply leaving the country for greener pastures, because the time they had with a more liberal leader was short and things quickly regressed.

Fighting for a better government is only worthwhile when the majority of people in your country are going to back you. If most of them like the crappy, oppressive government (or want something even worse), you're just wasting your time and effort trying to improve things, and you'd be better off finding someplace better to live.