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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[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 year ago

Well governments are made of people...

If you're assigning human traits to the building the government is in, sure it's stupid. Recognizing the traits of the people representing the state is pretty normal though.