Gold medalist Algeria’s Imane Khelif kisses her medal for the ladies’s 66 kg final boxing match on the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/John Locher)
PARIS — Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has filed a legal grievance in France for online harassment after a rain of criticism and false claims about her sex through the Paris Olympics, her lawyer said Sunday.
Khelif won gold Friday in the ladies’s welterweight division, becoming a brand new hero in her native Algeria and bringing global attention to women’s boxing.
The grievance was filed Friday with a special unit within the Paris prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech, alleging “aggravated cyber-harassment” targeting Khelif, lawyer Nabil Boudi said. In an announcement, he described it as a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” against the boxer.
READ: Imane Khelif wins Olympic gold amid scrutiny over her sex
It’s now as much as prosecutors to make a decision whether to open an investigation. As is common in French law, the grievance doesn’t name an alleged perpetrator but leaves it to investigators to find out who could possibly be at fault.
Khelif was unwittingly thrust right into a worldwide clash over gender identity and regulation in sports after her first fight, when Italian opponent Angela Carini pulled out just seconds into the match, citing pain from opening punches.
False claims that Khelif was transgender or a person erupted online, and the International Olympic Committee defended her and denounced those peddling misinformation. Khelif said that the spread of misconceptions about her “harms human dignity.”
READ: Imane Khelif calls for end to bullying after gender misconceptions
The Olympics-banned International Boxing Association disqualified Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan from the world championships last 12 months, claiming the 2 fighters failed unspecified eligibility tests for ladies’s competition.
The IOC has called the arbitrary sex tests that the game’s governing body imposed on the 2 women irretrievably flawed and has defended each boxers because the start of the Paris Games.
Experts say the scrutiny of Khelif and Lin reflected disproportionate scrutiny and discrimination toward female athletes of color with regards to sex testing and false claims that they’re male or transgender.
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