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

Even if you include 'killed by police' (or, in some cases, killed by militia) this stands true.

US pigs killed nearly 1100 people in 2022 and we're not even getting into all the social murder committed by our for profit medical and housing industries. I can't believe I'm seeing this whitewashing of American government malfeasance from a Hexbear user.

[–] SeborrheicDermatitis@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I wasn't referring to the US as one of the 'less murder-y' ones because it is a settler-colonial state. Though those killed by law enforcement in Iran are still considerably higher, e.g., during the Jina Ahmini protests over 300 were killed in only a month. This is even if you count literally every US police murder as part of a campaign of political repression, of which plenty were but certainly not all.

I don't know why you thought I was as I didn't even remotely begin to say it?

IDK how anyone-whether Hexbear or not-can possibly deny the fact that different governments rely on coercion to differing extents to maintain control.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well you edited your original response right after seeing this but your original comment talked about how the US only killed 18 people last year but these foreign countries in the middle east were more violent and killed hundreds, and how, even if you include police brutality this still "stands true."

It's hard for me to include your exact words since you took steps to obscure them but I think if you're honest with yourself you can admit you were downplaying the violence committed by the US on its populace relative to Iran.

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

The edit was to edit the number of people Iranian police killed during the Jina Ahmini protests because I read it wrong. IDK how to confirm it.

If you do not think that some states are more violent in their methods of control than others then I don't know what to tell you tbqh.

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The edit was to edit the number of people Iranian police killed during the Jina Ahmini protests

Nah, you're lying. I do specifically remember you comparing official execution numbers of Iran, Saudi Arabia and America (~600, ~100, and 18, respectively) to try to make it sound like the US was less murderous. I don't know why you're doing this but you're being dishonest in a way that both paints the US to look less violent than it's foreign enemies (and it's allies too, as long as their foreign enough. They're certainly not as bad as Iran though, right?) and then obfuscates the fact that you're doing that and I don't know why a multiple year old Hexbear account would do that but I do remember the general thrust of the original comment.

EDIT: actually I was wrong, we can confirm that you're lying, look at this quote from GarbageShoot's response to you

For instance: In 2022, Iran had minimum 596 executions (likely more), Saudi Arabia had 146, the US had 18,

[–] SeborrheicDermatitis@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.