Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment after a storm of criticism and claims about her sex during the Paris Olympics.
Khelif, who will be Algeria's flag bearer in the closing ceremony, won gold on 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 on Friday with a special unit in the Paris prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech, her lawyer, Nabil Boudi, said in a statement on Sunday,
The complaint alleges “aggravated cyber-harassment” targeting Khelif. Boudi described it as a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” against the boxer.
It is now up to prosecutors to decide whether to open an investigation. As is common in French law, the complaint does not name an alleged perpetrator but leaves it to investigators to determine who could be at fault.
Khelif was thrust into a worldwide row 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.
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 defended Khelif.
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.
