The lawyer for the Olympic boxing champion condemns “hypothesis fuelled by malicious people” who posted complaints on-line.
Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer on the centre of a gender row on the Paris Olympics, has filed a authorized grievance in opposition to social media platform X for harassment.
The gold medal winner’s lawyer mentioned Saturday that she had filed the formal grievance in France. Khelif and one other gold medalist, Taiwanese Lin Yu-ting, have been on the middle of a high-profile dispute over gender id that has sparked a heated debate on social media.
Citing court docket paperwork, French newspaper Le Monde reported that the boxing champion “filed a grievance in opposition to X” on the Paris correctional court docket, the nationwide middle for combating on-line harassment.
Khelif’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, mentioned the grievance was filed on Friday.
“Boxer Imane Khelif has determined to begin a brand new combat, a combat for justice, dignity and honour,” he mentioned in a press release asserting the grievance for “aggravated on-line harassment… [had been filed] “to the Paris prosecutors.”
“Every thing that’s mentioned about me on social media is immoral. I need to change the opinion of individuals around the globe,” Khelif mentioned.
The folks focused had been described as “senior political figures” with massive followings on X, the social media firm owned by Tesla and SpaceX chief govt Elon Musk. Posts concentrating on Khelif “exceeded 100 million views,” it added.
The hypothesis was “fuelled by malicious people,” Boudi mentioned. “The investigation will decide who was behind this misogynistic, racist and sexist marketing campaign, however it can additionally must take care of those that fuelled the web lynching.”
The furore over Khelif’s eligibility sparked criticism from folks together with former US President Donald Trump, Harry Potter writer JK Rowling and several other right-wing French politicians.
After profitable the gold medal on Friday night time, Khelif mentioned profitable was the right response to “assaults” and “bullying” and declared: “I’m a girl like some other.”
Questions concerning the gender of Khelif and Lin had been raised by the Worldwide Boxing Affiliation (IBA).
At a information convention final week, Kremlin-linked IBA president Umar Kremlev mentioned the organisation had performed “genetic assessments which present that these are males”.
The IBA banned each boxers from the 2023 world championships. Nonetheless, the Worldwide Olympic Committee has given them permission to field in Paris.
Requested if he would take related steps as Khelif, Lin mentioned: “That is one thing I’ll focus on with my group. We’ll determine later what the subsequent step might be.”
Following an early victory for Khelif within the ring, Rowling referred to the boxer as a “man” and accused her of “taking pleasure within the anguish of a girl whom she has simply hit over the pinnacle and whose ambition in life she has simply shattered.”
Trump declared in capital letters on his Fact Social web site: “I’ll preserve males out of ladies’s sports activities.” His vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, argued that “Kamala Harris’s concepts about gender” have led “to a grown man beating a girl in a boxing match.”