Iran has banned a weightlifter from sports for life and dissolved a sports committee after the athlete greeted an Israeli counterpart on a podium.

Mostafa Rajaei, a veteran weightlifter, finished second in his category in the 2023 World Master Weightlifting Championships in Poland and stood on a podium with an Iranian flag wrapped around him on Saturday.

On anther step of the podium stood Maksim Svirsky from Israel, who finished third.

The two athletes shook hands and took a picture together, which led to the Iran Weightlifting Federation banning Rajaei from all sports for life due to what it called an “unforgivable” transgression.

  • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
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    010 months ago

    Even if you include ‘killed by police’ (or, in some cases, killed by militia) this stands true.

    US pigs killed nearly 1100 people in 2022 and we’re not even getting into all the social murder committed by our for profit medical and housing industries. I can’t believe I’m seeing this whitewashing of American government malfeasance from a Hexbear user.

    • SeborrheicDermatitis [any]
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      10 months ago

      I wasn’t referring to the US as one of the ‘less murder-y’ ones because it is a settler-colonial state. Though those killed by law enforcement in Iran are still considerably higher, e.g., during the Jina Ahmini protests over 300 were killed in only a month. This is even if you count literally every US police murder as part of a campaign of political repression, of which plenty were but certainly not all.

      I don’t know why you thought I was as I didn’t even remotely begin to say it?

      IDK how anyone-whether Hexbear or not-can possibly deny the fact that different governments rely on coercion to differing extents to maintain control.

      • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
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        110 months ago

        Well you edited your original response right after seeing this but your original comment talked about how the US only killed 18 people last year but these foreign countries in the middle east were more violent and killed hundreds, and how, even if you include police brutality this still “stands true.”

        It’s hard for me to include your exact words since you took steps to obscure them but I think if you’re honest with yourself you can admit you were downplaying the violence committed by the US on its populace relative to Iran.