Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment after a rain of criticism and false claims about her sex during the Paris Olympics, her lawyer said Sunday.
Khelif, who will be Algeria's flag bearer in the closing ceremony, won gold Friday in the women’s welterweight division, becoming a new hero in her native Algeria and bringing global attention to women's boxing.
The complaint was filed Friday with a special unit in the Paris prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech, alleging “aggravated cyber-harassment” targeting Khelif, lawyer Nabil Boudi said. In a statement, he described it as a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” against the boxer.
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It is now up to prosecutors to decide whether to open an investigation. As is common in French law, the complaint doesn’t name an alleged perpetrator but leaves it to investigators to determine who could be at fault.
Khelif was unwittingly thrust 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 man 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.”
Earlier, Kirsty Burrows, an official in charge of the IOC's unit for safeguarding and mental health, filed a complaint with French authorities saying she received death threats and harassment online following a news conference in Paris at which she had spoken in defense of Khelif.
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The Paris prosecutor’s office said it received Burrows' complaint on Aug. 4 and agents from the National Unit for the Fight against Online Hate are investigating the alleged offenses, including death threats, public provocations aimed at attacking a person and cyberbullying. Under French law, the crimes, if proven, carry prison sentences that range from two to five years and fines ranging from 30,000 to 45,000 euros.
The Olympics-banned International Boxing Association disqualified Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan from the world championships last year, claiming the two fighters failed unspecified eligibility tests for women’s competition. The IOC has called the arbitrary sex tests that the sport’s governing body imposed on the two women irretrievably flawed and has defended both boxers since the start of the Paris Games.
Experts say the scrutiny of Khelif and Lin reflected disproportionate scrutiny and discrimination toward female athletes of color when it comes to sex testing and false claims that they are male or transgender.