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.
Ah shit I got rid of it by accident you’re kidding me. Ok sorry. I put it back. I copy-pasted the reply a bunch of times so I messed it up. I don’t care if you don’t believe me as I know it’s true.
Though executions are a shit metric anyway because US doesn’t use that for political control it uses the police extrajudicially. Whereas obviously executions are used for political control by, say, Saudi/Iran.