Three days ago, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has won the gold medal in the women’s middleweight division at the 2024 Olympics. It was supposed to be a triumphant moment for the athlete who had spent years training for this moment and won all four of her matches on the world’s biggest stage. Instead, it was overshadowed by a relentless campaign of ill-intentioned criticism focused on unfounded allegations about her gender. And because the Games were held in France, which has strong laws against online hate speech, Khelif has now filed a legal complaint with the Paris prosecutor’s office.
According to the Associated Press, Khalif’s lawyers filed a complaint alleging “aggravated cyber harassment” on Aug. 9, the day she won the gold medal. The complaint reportedly did not identify a specific perpetrator; instead, the prosecutor’s office will conduct an investigation and decide whether to charge anyone under the law, which could carry a prison sentence of two to five years and fines of up to tens of thousands of euros.
The campaign of “speculation fueled by malicious individuals… has exceeded 100 million views” on the X platform, and has become an “ordeal” for Khalifa, lawyer Nabil Boudi wrote in the complaint.
“I am sending a message to all the people of the world to support the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, and to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has huge implications,” Khalif told SNTV, a sports news agency. Online harassment “can destroy people, it can kill people’s ideas, their spirit, their minds. It can divide people. That’s why I ask them to refrain from bullying,” she added.
The manufactured right-wing controversy surrounding Khalif began on August 1, when her opponent, Italian boxer Angela Carini, walked out of a fight after just 46 seconds, saying, “I’ve never been hit so hard in my life.” This led to a torrent of misguided criticism from the likes of Elon Musk, J.K. Rowling, Donald Trump, and Logan Paul, all of whom falsely suggested that Khalif was a transgender woman and/or that she should be banned from women’s sporting events. In fact, Khalif, 25, was raised as a girl from birth, has never identified as a man, and lives in a country with strict anti-transgender laws that would make the scenario concocted by conservative critics highly unlikely. The claims about her gender are simply not true. (Paul later posted statement (which began with the word “OOPSIES,” admitting that “I may be guilty of spreading misinformation.”)
While the Russian-dominated International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified Khalif and another boxer from the world championships last year, the decision was roundly rejected by the boxing community, with the IBA currently led by a right-wing friend of Putin with a history of homophobic and transphobic remarks. International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach condemned the “hate speech… aggression and abuse” directed at Khalif, linking him to the ongoing feud between Russia and the IOC.
For her part, Carini was quick to deny all the attacks launched by her supposed supporters. The day after the match, she said she wanted to apologize to Khalifa: “All this controversy definitely saddened me, and I also felt sorry for my opponent, she had nothing to do with it, and like me, she was just here to fight… I have nothing against Khalifa, and on the contrary, if I happen to meet her again, I will hug her.”
