The Prosecutor’s Office in France has already begun the investigation into the complaint filed by the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif for cyberbullying following her participation in the women’s boxing events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. This, after being the victim of a controversy over her gender, announced Nabil Boudi, the athlete’s lawyer.
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The authorities are trying to determine whether what happened to Khelif corresponds to the crimes of gender-motivated cyberbullyingpublic insults also on the basis of gender, public provocation of discrimination and public insults on the basis of origin, the Paris prosecutor’s office told EFE.
The investigation has been entrusted to the French Gendarmerie’s Central Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH).
Gold medal winner Imane Khelif of Algeria poses on the podium of the women’s 66kg final of the boxing competitions at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Roland Garros in Paris, France.
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What happened to Algerian boxer Imane Khelif at the Paris Olympics?
It should be recalled that the 25-year-old, who won the -66kg final at this year’s Olympics, had been disqualified from last year’s world championships by the International Boxing Association (IBA) for failing a dubious eligibility test for women’s competitions. Khelif had also participated in the Tokyo games without causing such controversy.
The boxer’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, had explained that the objective of the complaint was to determine who started the “misogynistic, racist and sexist campaign” against his client, but also “who fueled this digital lynching.”
“After winning a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, boxer Imane Khelif decided to lead a new fight: that of justice, dignity and honor“, wrote his lawyer on his official page on the social network X.
Furthermore, the IBA is in open conflict with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has disavowed it and does not recognise it as an international boxing federation.
Imane Khelif and Angela Carini.
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Although the IOC allowed Khelif to participate, the controversy over her case resonated when she won her first fight due to the premature withdrawal of Italian Angela Carini, an action that received public support from the Prime Minister of her country, Giorgia Meloni, who said that this confrontation was not done on equal terms.
IOC President Thomas Bach defended Imane Khelif, calling the criticism she received “hate speech.”“We have a boxer who was born a woman, grew up as a woman, has a passport as a woman and who fought for many years as a woman,” Bach said.
On social media, many users responded negatively to the Algerian’s participation and messages against her grew when far-right political figures made statements claiming that the boxer was a transgender person, which unleashed a wave of transphobic statements on the Internet.
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*With information from EFE
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