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.

  • Acid
    link
    English
    3010 months ago

    I’d only change one thing and say most of the problems for Iran started because of the UK/US being imperialistic and has never recovered as a result

    • Awoo [she/her]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      1610 months ago

      Most communists have a general understanding that the way Iran is today is in fact America’s fault

      I’m not sure what I said differently here, I was referring to the historical events of US backed revolution and bombings that led to the existing Iran when I wrote the above. Modern Iran exists because America wanted to stop us socialists from getting power there. Everyone on this website should remind themselves of this when they see anticommunists screaming about “tankies”. Anticommunism leads to backing the far right consistently throughout history.