Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has filed a complaint in France for cyberbullying following a barrage of criticism and misconceptions about her gender during the Paris Games, her lawyer said Sunday.
Khelif won gold in the welterweight division on Friday, becoming a hero in her native Algeria and bringing global attention to women’s boxing.
The complaint was filed Friday with a special group of the Paris prosecutor’s office that combats hate speech using digital technologies. They alleged that Khelif was “cyber-harassed,” according to lawyer Nabil Boudi.
In a statement, Boudi described it as a “misogynistic, racist and sexist campaign” against the boxer.
The prosecutor’s office will have to decide whether to open an investigation. As is common in French law, the complaint does not identify the alleged perpetrator, but leaves it up to investigators to determine who might be responsible.
The outcome of Khelif’s first fight in Paris put her at the center of a global polarization over gender identity and safety regulations in the sport. Her first opponent, Italian Angela Carini, left the fight in tears after just 46 minutes. Carini said she had felt too much pain from Khelif’s blows.
This was followed by comments from figures including former US President Donald Trump, “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling and others falsely claiming Khelif was male or transgender.
Khelif responded that the wave of hateful questioning she has faced over misconceptions about her gender “harms human dignity.”
The debate at the Games came 16 months after Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting were disqualified and denied medals at the 2023 world championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA), a body dominated by Russia.
The IBA, which has been locked in a bitter feud with the IOC for years, said neither boxer had passed a shady eligibility test for women’s competitions. At Paris 2024, boxing is regulated by a group appointed by the IOC, with eligibility rules approved in 2016 that are somewhat outdated compared with those governing other Olympic sports.
Lin also ended up taking home a gold medal.
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