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.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 132 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You’ve gotta be pretty insecure to have a complete breakdown over a minor issue. Really makes Irans government appear weak.

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 64 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Assigning human traits to governments is so weird lol

[–] fushuan@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are made by people in the end

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

Oh wow, I did not know that.

[–] fushuan@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Well, yeah it's obvious, but when people say that X company or country looks weak/happy/pissed, they are refering to the board of directors or congress that are taking the decisions, naming the country instead of the whole sentence is easier.

You can still find it weird ofc, I was just trying to explain why people do it.

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[–] s0ykaf@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

politics for liberals are just a big reality show

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[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Yeah, all this does is broadcast weakness. It’s a pathetic reaction.

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago

Islamists are fragile nut cases

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[–] Farman@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A reminder that we dont know if this is true or not. And if its true what really happened. Most western news on iran are like those on north korea greatly exagerated or completly made up.

[–] deconstruct@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This was initially reported by Al Jazerra (Qatar) and The National (UAE).

[–] MultigrainCerealista@hexbear.net 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Qatar is very anti-Iran.

I’m not seeing any news of this at all in Iranian media, which actually is fairly tabloid and weight lifting is a big thing in Iran. Even if you want to tell yourself the regime has absolute control over information, which isn’t true, they’d still need to provide a cover story due to the high profile nature of it and I don’t see one.

Also Iranian social media is vibrant and also I don’t see anything in Persian but maybe I’m using the wrong search terms?

All I see are the bbc and the telegraph and cnn etc etc etc repeating almost exactly the same story word for word.

It seems like fake news to me. The classic case of one biased journalist writing a story, sending it to AP, and the entire western media just repeating the thing word for word because it’s free news inches and posting propaganda of this nature is oddly enough free in our modern system of journalism.

Hook line and sinker. Suckers born every day.

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[–] Farman@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago

None of those are pro iran.

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

Damn, I hate waiting on confirmation of whether or not Iran is this based.

[–] krayj@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are opposed to even the most basic form of civility. Yeah, we already knew that, this just makes it clear to the doubters.

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[–] Firipu@startrek.website 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Djeezus... Sports should be above politics. Shitty stuff.

[–] blackbelt352@lemmy.sdf.org 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah none of that politics stuff like how Jackie Robinson playing baseball definitely wasn't political, and the US vs Soviets 1980 Olympics definitely wasn't politically charged, and people definitely were expressing their dislike of the Soviets during the game or the entire point of the Olympics being a peaceful gathering of nation states for competition ia definitely not political, or all the taxpayer money that goes to building stadiums also isnt political, or that the owners of sports teams are politically active isnt... political. Oh... wait.

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[–] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Sports have always been political

Always.

How are you a star trek fan yet this is somehow a shock for you lol

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[–] 0000011110110111i@lemm.ee 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Meanwhile, Iran actually has a seat in parliament that is reserved for a Jewish representative.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the matter at hand is antizionism, not antisemitism

[–] ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Based. Genocidal Colonizers should be shunned. Free Palestine 🇵🇸

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[–] ConditionOverload@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

"Unforgivable". These idiots...

[–] Hank@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Handshake scene from the Interview

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