Iran has new President

[SalarHaqq]

Who is reformist? and hardliner is little small word for hosting Indina naval base next to Pakistan!

There's no "Indian naval base" anywhere in Iran. Islamic Iran's constitution explicitly forbids the establishment of foreign military bases on Iranian soil.

Who is religious leader in ME besides Iranian religious leaders?
While all the mess is only because of Iranian missiles, whose blue prints were given by Benazir Bhutto and Zardari and who know what Imran Khan team is leaking.

Iran didn't receive missile blueprints from Pakistan. The countries which initially provided Iran with Scud missiles, helping Iran to kick start its domestic missile program, are Libya and Syria.

How surprising, every Iranian i meet is seeking democracy but never a single one from the hordes on this forum... seems like worlds apart.

Iran is already a democracy. Albeit not a western-style liberal secular one, but a religious democracy.

__________

Reformist cannot run, previous Iran President, Rouhani is also a conservative, but he is a moderate one

This isn't exactly accurate.

Concerning Rohani, he is not part of the factions commonly referred to as conservative. Actually, Rohani is perhaps the single most despised politician among so-called conservative factions - with the sole exception of some currents within the Motalefe party. Every other "conservative" organization does not want anything to do with this person.

Also, about reformists: not one, but two reformist candidates were allowed to run at this year's presidential election. Their names are Hemmati and Mehralizadeh.

Here's evidence:

The following quote is from the Wikipedia entry about Hemmati's party, the Executives of Construction Party of Iran (ECPI).

The Executives of Construction of Iran Party [a] (Persian: حزب کارگزاران سازندگی ایران‎, romanized: Hezb-e Kārgozārān-e Sāzandegi-ye Irān) is a reformist[8] political party in Iran, founded by 16[5] members of the cabinet of the then President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in 1996.[7][3] The party is a member of Council for coordinating the Reforms Front.[8]

As for Mehralizadeh's political formation, called Way of the People Party, it is reformist as well.

See the title of the following BBC article:

را٠ÙÙØªØ ØªÙÙد ØØ²Ø¨Û Ø¬Ø¯Ûد در 'بازار شاÙ' اصÙاØâØ·Ùبا٠- BBC News ÙارسÛ

Ùشخص ÙÛست برÙاÙÙ Ù ÙÙجÙدÛت اÛÙ Øزب جدÛد اصÙاØâØ·Ùب Ú٠تÙاÙØªÛ Ø¨Ø§ دÛگر اØزاب اصÙاØâØ·ÙØ¨Û Ø¯Ø§Ø±Ø¯ ک٠از سا٠۱۳۹۲ ب٠بعد تشکÛ٠شد٠است. ب٠ÙÛÚ٠آÙÚ©Ù ÙÙسسا٠اÛÙ ØØ²Ø¨Ø Ø¹Ø¶Ù ÚÙد Øزب دÛگر ÙÙ ÙستÙد. Ø¢Ûا تأ اÛ٠اØزاب بÙ...

www.bbc.com

راه ملت؛ تولد حزبی جدید در 'بازار شام' اصلاح‌طلبان

Allow me to translate for you: "Way of the People; Birth of a new party in the "dinner market" of the Reformists" ("eslāh-talabān" means reformists in Persian).

In fact, moderates were absent from this year's election, whereas reformists were represented.

Middle East people still dont understand the concept of democracy to let all powers have chance to rule, instead what they think of democracy is to let what they want to rule to win any election, and if the reality doesnt like that, they protesting the elected leader like happening in Egypt.

If democracy has been run, so any conflict must also be solved in institution instead of the street (demonstration)

If Middle East want to be democratic, both their nationalist and Islamist should see each other as partner instead of enemy and compete in programs and track record to win votes.

Don't know about the rest of West Asia, but Iran is a religious democracy. Far more democratic than western liberal so-called "democracies".

Imagine that at the height of the Cold War, one of two major political currents allowed to run at Indonesian elections was apologetic towards the USSR and communist China, and that its foreign policy program basically consisted in acquiescing to every single concession which Moscow and Beijing asked of Jakarta... Which is basically the program liberal factions in Iran (both reformists and moderates) have sought to implement. These liberals are bent on bowing to demands formulated by the US regime, Iran's main geopolitical enemy.

Also imagine that the Indonesian president awarded an academic prize to an author claiming "Pancasila is dead"... Like Rohani awarded the 9th Farabi Human Sciences Prize to political science professor Javad Tabatabai, who had declared to a French journal: "Islam is dead".

Only then will you accurately grasp the degree to which Iran is democratic. Incomparable to any developing and even developed nation I know of, to be honest.

__________

Wat will it do for him to be an Iraqi nationalist? Are ur men in the army , are ur generals even nationalists? Isn't that why ur shameless generals fled wen isis took over Mosul? Didn't they drop their weapons and their pants and flee? Which one of them was a nationalist? Have a freaking country first and then talk about ideologies such as nationalism. Are u gunna deny u guys are a BANANA republic? Iran came to save ur capital Baghdad wen isis was successfully pushing thru. Be thankful u have a home. Otherwise isis wudve made u grow a giant ugly beard and make u sell women in the markets. PATHETIC

Actually, any Iraqi nationalist in his right mind would advocate friendly ties and cooperation with Iran, and would correctly identify the US and zionist regimes as the main threats to Iraqi sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

You call that pathetic state of urs a country ? Lmao. Look at you and look at ur state. You can do nothing . You are capable of nothing. Your pm is a joke. Your military is a joke. Your people are a joke. Only thing that's not a joke is that u obey us. And u will obey us or we will make u pay . Deal with it.

I understand the user you were replying to got on your nerves, but this doesn't reflect Iran's position, brother.

Iran does not seek to vassalize any of its neighbors and allies. On the contrary, unlike the US regime Iran establishes friendly ties on equal footing and respects its partners' national sovereignty. Look at how Iran informed Iraq prior to the missile strikes on the US base at Ayn al-Assad.

Or listen to Iran's senior diplomat Hossein-Amir Abdollahian, who recounted an anecdote where the US regime asked Iranian delegates to organize a meeting in order to discuss the Iraqi dossier - the Americans suggested the meeting should be held behind closed doors and no Iraqi officials should be allowed to assist; Iran on the other hand said no way, we will not enter any discussion with you on Iraq as long as Iraqi officials themselves aren't allowed to be present! And so on, and so forth.

__________

You seems to misunderstand what people are saying on this thread. I saw no one here having issues with Iran or Iranians.They do however have issues with the mullah regime that would probably suffocate it's own people even more now with this hardliner elected.

It seems many Iranians feel the same , as the majority of them ( 52% ) , didn't even bother showing up for the election. And from those that did bother to vote - 14% put in an Invalid/blank vote .

Yes you read correctly , from the 28.6 million that did vote , 4 million Iranians put in an invalid or or blank vote.

Just for comparison in 2017 , there where only 1.2 invalid votes.

Seems the only way left open for Iranians to voice their opinion is either not to participate , or put a blank vote. With close the 60% of Iranians doing just that , they indeed have voiced their opinion,

Wrong conclusions drawn, I'm afraid. In fact, even if voter turnout was 73.1% like in 2017, even if all the additional votes went to the liberal candidate, and even if we were to assume that every single blank or void vote was in fact a protest vote against the system, the revolutionary / principlist candidates would still have gotten a clear majority!

This simple calculation proves it:

17.926.345 votes for Ra'isi
3.412.712 votes for Rezai
999.718 votes for Ghazizadeh

Total of votes for revolutionary and/or principlist candidates = 22.338.775

2.427.201 votes for Hemmati
3.726.870 blank or invalid votes
13.909.262 votes deficit to reach a 73.1% turnout

Total of presumed votes not going to a revolutionary and/or principlist candidate (if all blank and void votes were cast by citizens not supportive of revolutionary candidates, and if participation was as high as 73.1%, with all additional votes going to a liberal) = 20.063.333

In other words, based on what we know and no matter how one looks at it, the revolutionaries and/or principlists are now favored by a majority of voters. In truth, this majority is likely to be more pronounced even than the above figures suggest, given that many of the void votes were in fact votes for Jalili (another revolutionary candidate who dropped out of the race at the last minute, hence some of his supporters weren't informed), as well as the fact that there were multiple motivations for not voting at this year's election, including the coronavirus pandemic.

So, people can interpret it whichever way they want, but the revolutionary camp today has overwhelming support in Iran.

 

[313ghazi]

Iranian members - did you vote?

What are the policies of the new guy in charge?

 

[sammuel]

~

, the revolutionary camp today has overwhelming support in Iran.

Sure , overwhelming support with 59% either not bothering to vote at all ,or casting a blank vote.


As for all the people in the picture , they just vanished and don't live in Iran anymore :

~

 

[SalarHaqq]

~




sure , overwhelming support with 59% either not bothering to vote at all ,or casting a blank vote.


As for all the people in the picture , they just vanished and don't live in Iran anymore :

~

I see myself obliged to repeat:

17.926.345 votes for Ra'isi
3.412.712 votes for Rezai
999.718 votes for Ghazizadeh

Total of votes for revolutionary and/or principlist candidates = 22.338.775

2.427.201 votes for Hemmati
3.726.870 blank or invalid votes
13.909.262 votes deficit to reach a 73.1% turnout

Total of presumed votes not going to a revolutionary and/or principlist candidate (if all blank and void votes were cast by citizens not supportive of revolutionary candidates, and if participation was as high as 73.1%, with all additional votes going to a liberal) = 20.063.333

As for the 12-year old picture, those Green movement supporters were easily matched and even surpassed in numbers by pro-Ahmadinejad demonstrators. One US news broadcaster was honest enough to admit it.

Let's not even mention martyr Qassem Soleimani, embodiment of the Islamic Revolution, whose obsequy gave rise to the largest funeral gathering in human history.

 

[sammuel]

I see myself obliged to repeat:

17.926.345 votes for Ra'isi
3.412.712 votes for Rezai
999.718 votes for Ghazizadeh

Total of votes for revolutionary and/or principlist candidates = 22.338.775

2.427.201 votes for Hemmati
3.726.870 blank or invalid votes
13.909.262 votes deficit to reach a 73.1% turnout

" voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. "

WTHETHER THEY CAST A VOID OR VALID VOTE , DOES NOT CHANGE THE FINAL TURNOUT NUMBER.

THE ONLY THING YOU CAN CONCLUDE FROM THE VOID VOTES IS :

THAT ON TOP OF THOSE NOT VOTING ( 52% ) ABOUT 7% PUT A VOID OR BLANK VOTE, CUASE THEy DID NOT GIVE A F*CK WHO GET ELCTED , BRINGING THE TOTTAL NUMBER OF THOSE WHO DID NOT GIVE A F*CK WHO GETS ELECTED TO 59%


~

 

[SalarHaqq]

" voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. "

WTHETHER THEY CAST A VOID OR VALID VOTE , DOES NOT CHANGE THE FINAL TURNOUT NUMBER.

THE ONLY THING YOU CAN CONCLUDE FROM THE VOID VOTES IS :

THAT ON TOP OF THOSE NOT VOTING ( 52% ) ABOUT 7% PUT A VOID OR BLANK VOTE, CUASE THEy DID NOT GIVE A F*CK WHO GET ELCTED , BRINGING THE TOTTAL NUMBER OF THOSE WHO DID NOT GIVE A F*CK WHO GETS ELECTED TO 59%


~

No need for caps lock, nor any need to copy paste the same thing again, since I addressed it already. I know hajj Raisi's election is bad news for the regime in Tel Aviv, but hey...

17.926.345 votes for Ra'isi
3.412.712 votes for Rezai
999.718 votes for Ghazizadeh

Total of votes for revolutionary and/or principlist candidates = 22.338.775

2.427.201 votes for Hemmati
3.726.870 blank or invalid votes
13.909.262 votes deficit to reach a 73.1% turnout

Total of presumed votes not going to a revolutionary and/or principlist candidate (if all blank and void votes were cast by citizens not supportive of revolutionary candidates, and if participation was as high as 73.1%, with all additional votes going to a liberal) = 20.063.333

No matter how one will want to interpret it: this is an obvious, legitimate, democratic victory for the revolutionary camp in Iran.

 

[SalarHaqq]

Western so-called "democracies" have shown their true violent totalitarian face once again on the occasion of the 2021 presidential election of Iran.

In major European and North American cities, whether London, Birmingham, Stockholm, Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin or elsewhere, western regimes tasked exiled Iranian opposition grouplets to harass, heckle, insult, threaten and in some cases (Birmingham, Stockholm, etc) even physically assault ordinary Iranian citizens who went to cast their vote at the election!

These actions occurred right in front or in the immediate surroundings of polling stations. The verbal abuse included insults against voters' family members. Threats included death threats - namely, promises to "hang" voters after the Islamic Republic "is toppled". The attacks included stone pelting, as happened in Stockholm.

Another lowly tactic western-backed oppositionists resort to, is to contact locations serving as polling stations and issue anonymous bomb threats, which result in the venues having to shut down.

The fact that two opposition grouplets which reject each other and do not normally coordinate their actions (MKO terrorist sect and monarchist Reza Pahlavi supporters) were present at the scene and were conducting the exact same types of operations, indicates that orders most likely came from above, in other words from their zionist and NATO handlers.

Note that during the previous presidential elections of 2013 and 2017, given the fact that liberal moderate candidate Rohani was likely to be elected, none of this happened. Exiled oppositionists largely stayed home and did not annoy overseas voters. But as soon as a revolutionary candidate is believed to stand the best chance of getting elected, Iran's "democracy"- and "human rights"-preaching existential enemies set out to put their propaganda machinery into overdrive mode, to mobilize their internet troll armies, and above all to harass, offend and physically assault overseas voters!

This is what NATO regimes, Isra"el" and their Iranian proxies such as MKO, monarchists, liberal "democrats" actually mean by "democracy"... Their sole motto can be summed up as: we will hang you if you vote for the wrong party, if you have the wrong opinion, if you refuse to bow to the zionist and US regimes.

In the following video, you can hear multiple witness accounts confirming these events, and also view some relevant clips shot on location.

Iran blasts Commonwealth states for failing to provide security for Iranian voters

The Iranian Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights censures certain Commonwealth member states for failing to provide security for the Iranians voting in the 13th presidential election at the embassies of their host countries.

www.presstv.com

https://en.irna.ir/news/84375315/3-arrested-for-attacking-Iranian-voters-in-Birmingham

When I tell you that the regimes in Tel Aviv and Washington are fuming with anger and getting increasingly desperate about Iran's presidential election result, these examples are here to illustrate the fact.

 

[Ahmet Pasha]

Ahmedinejad was a great candidate.

 

[Xerxes22]

Ahmedinejad was a great candidate.

Ahmadinejad has chosen his ego over the revolution. He has been no short than an extremely jealous madman recently. Nd i still love him for his service. But he has chosen himself, over the revolution and that can't be accepted. If it wasn't ahmedinejad, I'd have called him a traitor right away cuz of his recent behaviour

 

[sammuel]

~

Iran is already a democracy.

LoL for that ,

With a supreme leader that is never replaced , zero freedom of the press , zero freedom of speech , with opposition members , human right lawyers and activist behind bars = IRAN IS NOT A DEMOCRACY.

But what is hilarious , is that deep down you know that democracy , freedom of speech , freedom of the press , are indeed worthy values.

But instead of pressing on , to see that such values would indeed exist in Iran , you try to parade as if they already exist.

This is characteristic to dictatorships. Same as north Korea likes to parade itself as the (DPRK) : the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

~

~

 

[Cthulhu]

Iranian members - did you vote?

Yes, i voted blank.

What are the policies of the new guy in charge?

Don't know, Wasn't following this election closely i was very busy.

 

[aryobarzan]

First news conference....look at the news agency microphones..and those are the ones who are allowed in....what he does and what he says..effects everyone in middle east...

 

[Saddam Hussein]

hey loser could you please stop stalking me? I get it you failed in the society here in Iraq so you had to go to the land of the christians and atheists to live off of their accomplishments. you say you are an engineer right? yeah nice joke, we all know what the majority of "engineers" end up doing here in Iraq, most of them are unemployed so they have to leave and since you are not in Iraq anymore most likely you are one of those losers who failed to find a proper job here.
Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with any kind of job and I totally respect a good person no matter what is his job but when a loser like you talks rude to me even though I never said anything rude towards you then I will show you the difference between you and me and rub it in your face.
you are a fake Iraqi nationalist, you hate the Shia Arabs even though they constitute the majority.
So I dont need some loser like you to lecture me about patriotism towards the country.
I mean just think about this for a second, imagine if a loser came to a christian doctor and told him that he is an unpatriotic "Islamist Shia" (I usually don't like to mention religion but since you previously kept bringing that up I had to), ofcourse I will have to put you back in your place.

Any way tomorrow I have work, so you should feel honored that you made me waste time on you.

Did u get mad at this engineer

Yup, I'm an engineer with a job, you seen to care a lot about that LOL.

I think you forgot your rafhawis in London are a majority of Iraq's diaspora in the west.

Make sure to pull the Iranian nuts out of your ***, return to the Arabization class before it won't be a choice anymore.

Allah azza wa jal does not permit the Dayyooth into heaven. Remember this.

Also work on yourself, you are disrespectful to manual workers, garbage collectors etc. I respect them all, I don't go around waving my master degree. Try to do the same, idgaf that Ur a doctor, my entire family is.

Having said that we engineers will one day render doctors obsolete.

 

[SalarHaqq]

With a supreme leader that is never replaced , zero freedom of the press , zero freedom of speech , with opposition members , human right lawyers and activist behind bars = IRAN IS NOT A DEMOCRACY.

Spoken like someone with no knowledge of Iranian politics other than the usual mantras western, zionist and other hostile propaganda sources have been saturating the global media landscape with.

To start with, the Supreme Leader is indirectly elected by the Iranian people. The Assembly of Experts, which appoints the Leader and is directly elected by the people, can remove him from power at any moment. So throughout his mandate, the Leader is politically responsible towards an elected body. Also, he is very far from exerting full control over the country's affairs. On a regular basis, guidelines he sets are simply ignored by the presidency and other institutions.

There is extensive freedom of the press in Iran. A reformist daily like Shargh will feature a very different orientation than a revolutionary one such as Keyhan. State and government policies are critically reviewed all the time by these papers.

Freedom of speech reaches very high levels in the Islamic Republic. Citizens on a daily basis not only criticize but in certain cases even insult, curse and threaten high ranking officials publicly without facing any consequences. This is something any visitor can empirically notice.

On the institutional level, freedom of speech in Iran is such that:

- The acting President can openly mock and ridicule the Supreme Leader with no fear whatsoever. To provide a telling example, current President Rohani brazenly derided Supreme Leader Khamenei's statement that if Trump tears the JCPOA (nuclear deal), Iran would set it ablaze. To paraphrase Rohani: "Some think they have a barbecue where international agreements can be thrown onto and burnt." Also, President Rohani openly threatened both the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader by stating that in case of protests, the military should side with protesters and not with the state - in other terms, he indirectly encouraged the Iranian army to betray its commander-in-chief, in other words the Supreme Leader. And Rohani faced neither political nor judicial consequences for a statement like this.

- Major activists pertaining to a specific political current can tour Iranian universities and freely advocate, in front of large student audiences, that Iran should recognize and stop resisting her main geostrategic foe i.e. the zionist regime. Reformist figures such as Sadegh Zibakalam and Mahmud Sariolghalam have been doing just that.

- A professor of political science, Javad Tabatabai, whose daughter Ariane Tabatabai is a member to the current administration of the US, another enemy state, as well as to Washington think tanks hostile to Iran, can freely question the very ideological and political foundations of Iran's constitutional order in a manner susceptible to clash with religious sensitivities (naturally of great import in a religious democracy such as the Islamic Republic), by claiming in an interview with a magazine that "Islam is dead". Now one might think that a standpoint as subversive as this vis-à-vis the established political order, would earn its proponent serious judicial consequences, at least if he was living under a dictatorship... well, not so in the religious democracy that is Islamic Iran: for not only was Tabatabai never even summoned by the Judiciary, on the contrary, he received the country's most prestigious humanities award (namely, the 9th Farabi Prize for Human Sciences) from none other than the acting liberal President Rohani.

More importantly, the degree of political pluralism prevailing in Iran, surpasses anything seen in self-styled "democracies" of the west. Indeed, the main political factions of governance are so unbelievably far apart in Iran, that one of them has built its entire political agenda around the notion of capitulating unconditionally to enemy states (the US, its NATO allies, plus the regime in Tel Aviv), and acquiescing to each and every demand put forth by these same enemy states. It is as if the Labor Party in Occupied Palestine (HaAvoda) for example, was bent on implementing Iran's and Lebanese Hezbollah's proposal for a resolution of the crisis in Palestine.

Not only that, but the liberal faction in Iran is also seeking to operate "regime change" from within by abandoning every major element that lends the Islamic Republic its specific political and ideological identity (a process they refer to as "normalization"). As if one of the two main political parties of governance in a liberal "democracy" was permanently acting like Gorbachev did towards the USSR.

Elsewhere in the world, this degree of pluralism between competing political currents is completely unheard of.

Therefore, as a matter of fact Iran is a democracy (albeit not a secular nor a liberal but a religious one). A US official such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell was honest enough to acknowledge this fact in explicit terms. But what is more, not only is the Islamic Republic of Iran a democratic political system, it is even more democratic than western regimes, due to the reason explained above.

But what is hilarious , is that deep down you know that democracy , freedom of speech , freedom of the press , are indeed worthy values.

In fact I have been somewhat critical of the extent to which Iran has instituted democratic practices, because these make Iran inherently vulnerable to its much more resourceful existential foreign enemies. I would rather advocate that the Islamic Republic backpedal somewhat on its overly democratic aspects.

To you however, these concepts seem to represent geopolitical instrument of power above all. Much rather than values. Else, we would surely have seen you worry at least as much and actually far more about democracy and freedom of speech in countries such as the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia, the UAE or Bahrein... which contrary to Iran feature no democratic element whatsoever in their governing system, but happen to be on good terms with the zionist regime.

Also, the same zionist and western regimes have just used their proxies, that is Iranian exile opposition grouplets (MKO, monarchists, "ethnic" separatists etc), in order to heckle, threaten and assault overseas Iranian voters participating in the recent presidential election. So much for supposed western and zionist "preoccupation" about democracy in Iran.

 

[aryobarzan]

@camelguy @obj 705A :
@Malik Alashter
Something wars bring people together..this for camelguy for sure..


Worlds apart, enemies in a brutal war find brotherly love
Open this photo in gallery:
Zahed Haftlang, left, originally from Iran, and Najah Aboud, originally from Iraq, who co-wrote ‘I, Who Did Not Die’ with journalist Meredith May, talk in Vancouver, B.C., on March 23.
DARRYL DYCK/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
MARSHA LEDERMAN
VANCOUVER
PUBLISHED MARCH 28, 2017UPDATED MARCH 28, 2017
PUBLISHED MARCH 28, 2017
This article was published more than 4 years ago. Some information in it may no longer be current.
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In 1982, in the chaos of a bloody battle during the Iran-Iraq War, Iranian child soldier Zahed Haftlang saved Iraqi soldier Najah Aboud's life. Twenty years later, a coincidental meeting half a world away in Vancouver allowed Aboud to do the same for Haftlang.
"He is my brother from another mother," Haftlang says as he takes Aboud into the warmest embrace the entranceway to The Globe and Mail's British Columbia bureau has perhaps ever witnessed.
Zahed Haftlang was 13 when he joined Iran's Basij paramilitary, running away from his abusive home. What he faced was beyond comprehension, including the night he and the other child soldiers were made to run through a minefield – human shields getting blown to pieces so the others could follow more safely. Haftlang was good with bandages and trained as a medic.
Najah Aboud was 28, running a successful falafel restaurant in Iraq, when he was called back for military service in 1980. He was assigned to tank duty.
Their story is told in the just-published book I, Who Did Not Die: A Sweeping Story of Loss, Redemption, and Fate. Just published, it is one of those you-wouldn't-believe-this-if-it-was-fiction books.

"You're always hoping for a story like this, one that's so unbelievable that I almost didn't believe it. I was a little skeptical and I kept trying to trip them up a little bit with questions to see if their stories would differ," says U.S. journalist Meredith May, who co-authored the book with the men and joined them for an interview last week.
"When I first heard your story, the hair on my arms stood up," she says to them. "You hear so many depressing stories out of the Middle East, and it made me believe that there's hope. And it made me feel that there is something out there looking out for us. And you can call it God, you can call it Mother Nature, you can call it the Universe, you can call it karma, you can call it dumb luck. Whatever you want to call it, it made me more spiritual."
Their lives intersected in Khorramshahr, Iran in May, 1982, during a notorious battle between Iran and Iraq. Aboud's tank was attacked. Escaping into the bedlam, he was hit – but managed to make his way into a bunker with a few other Iraqis.
Haftlang was ordered at nightfall to search the bunkers, give medical aid to wounded Iranians and shoot any Iraqis. "I had never killed anyone, and I really, really didn't want to," he writes.
In one bunker, he heard moaning from the bottom of a pile of bodies. He pulled the corpses off and found a blood-soaked man. "I hoped he would die on me," he wrote.


It was Aboud, who appealed to the boy. "Muslim," he said. He reached into his pocket to show Haftlang his Koran. Haftlang paged through it and found a photo of a woman and a baby.
"He's not any more a soldier," Haftlang said during the interview, looking across the table at Aboud. "He's a human."
In that bunker, they could not communicate with words; they spoke different languages. "He smiled to show me I'm okay," Aboud says. "It was like an angel came from space."
The woman in the photo was Aboud's girlfriend. They had met back home, found a way to talk secretly, fell in love – and had a single passionate encounter. Aboud did not know that she was pregnant until he returned home on a medical leave and met his baby. With a Polaroid camera, he snapped the photo that would later save his life.
Haftlang did more than not shoot Aboud. He fed him water, injected a painkiller, bandaged him up. "Shhh," he said. He returned and jerry-rigged an IV drip. He eventually got him to a hospital.
Both men survived the war. But they went through hell. Both were POWs – Aboud for 17 years. Both were treated abysmally. Both were held long after the war ended.

Their unlikely reunion happened in 2002, in a Vancouver waiting room.
Coincidentally, both men had settled here. Aboud had used his brother's Canadian passport to board a flight to Vancouver and claimed refugee status.
Haftlang found work in Iran as a ship mechanic, but at one point, when the ship was in Vancouver, he clashed with the ship's captain and ripped a framed photo of Ayatollah Khomeini off the wall and smashed it to the ground (Haftlang had quite a temper). To escape possible imprisonment, Haftlang dove into the icy waters of English Bay, where he was rescued by a kayaker.
Some time later, Haftlang, living at a refugee centre, was despondent. One day when his roommates left to celebrate Canada Day, Haftlang decided to end his life. He was hanging from a ceiling beam when his friend returned for his sunglasses. Haftlang was rescued and taken to hospital.
Two days later, Haftlang visited VAST, the Vancouver Association for the Survivors of Torture. That same day, Aboud and his brother took their father, who had also emigrated and was having trouble adjusting to life in Canada, for a counselling appointment – at VAST.
In the lobby, the waiting men greeted each other – "Salaam" – and a conversation began; chatty Haftlang pressing, reluctant Aboud pretending to read his magazine.

"We didn't recognize each other," says Haftlang.
They began to share details of their lives during the war, and finally came to the battle in Khorramshahr.
Haftlang spoke about finding a dying Iraqi with a Koran and a picture of a woman and baby inside.
Aboud was stunned. "This mine – I have Koran, I have [a picture of] my boy, my wife!
"I started to shout," he continues. "We lose our control. He shout and I shout." The centre's staff came running, concerned things had come to blows in the waiting room. Instead they found two men embracing.
"I had a depression. I cried between seven and 11 times a day. And he had depression too," says Haftlang. "Our depression, it's gone," he says, snapping his fingers and bursting into a laugh. "I did not [need] any pills any more, from 2002 until today." Haftlang, who had saved Aboud's life 20 years ago, was now saved by his reunion with Aboud. "What comes around goes around," he says.

That year, Globe and Mail journalist Robert Matas wrote about their story. It has since generated enormous interest. I, Who Did Not Die was published Tuesday in Canada and the United States.
"Right now, especially when you have a certain North American world leader demonizing people, it's our job as reporters and artists to humanize those very same people," says co-author May.
Toronto-based filmmaker Ann Shin has been following their story for five years.
"I met them and over cups of tea I heard their stories and I was bawling," Shin says. Her short documentary My Enemy, My Brother was nominated for an Emmy and shortlisted for an Oscar. A feature-length doc of the same name will premiere at Hot Docs next month. "In light of current affairs, it's a really inspiring and positive story of two Muslim men who rose above their circumstances and I think a beacon to us all, really," she says.
Haftlang, 48, lives in West Vancouver with his wife and two children and runs an auto-mechanic shop in Port Coquitlam. Aboud, 64, lives in Richmond, B.C. He has a flea-market stall and a moving company.
Haftlang and Aboud talk every day. They call each other brothers.

Jokes May, "They fight like brothers too."