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.
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.