Algerian gold medal boxer Imane Khelif has filed a legal complaint for the online harassment she continues to face during this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris. The complaint comes in the wake of a “gender controversy” fueled by asinine false claims that Khelif is transgender when she was in fact born a female.
According to Khelif’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, the complaint was officially filed this past Friday, August 10, with the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office while citing that the Algerian Gold Medalist was the victim of online harassment while competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
“After the sporting time, comes the legal time. Having just won a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, boxer Imane Khelif has decided to lead a new fight: that of justice, dignity, and honor. Ms. Khelif contacted the firm which filed a complaint yesterday for acts of cyber harassment aggravated by the anti-online hatred center of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office.”
The statement continues, “The criminal investigation will determine who initiated this misogynistic, racist, and sexist campaign, but will also have to focus on those who fueled this digital lynching. The unfair harassment suffered by the boxing champion will remain the biggest stain of these Olympic Games.”
The bigoted shitstorm surrounding Khelif started earlier last week after Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew from her fight with Khelif after just 46 seconds after claiming to have experienced intense pain in her nose after a delivered shot from Khelif. Although Carini never directly made any false claims about Khelif’s gender, the Italian boxer helped fuel the transphobia and deliberate false information from spreading when she told news outlets that she thought it was “unfair” that Khelif was allowed to compete against her at the Summer Games. Carini also called on the IOC to investigate whether the Algerian boxer was eligible to compete in the women’s boxing tournament at the Olympics.
From there the likes of Elon Musk and Jake Paul as well as noted transphobes in JK Rowling and Riley Gaines began to spread the gross misinformation about Khelif leading to a firestorm of hate and bigotry directed towards the Olympic Champion.
U.S. Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance also couldn’t help himself when it came to being a bigoted jackass.
Today, Khelif released a short statement about the harassment she’s faced:
“All that is being said about me on social media is immoral. I want to change the minds of people around the world.”
Khelif secured the gold in the women’s welterweight (66kg) event beating Yang Liu of China. And unlike Carini, Liu was gracious in defeat never showing any hostility toward her opponent while the two raised each other’s hands in a beautiful display of sportsmanship after their match.
