According to Variety, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into online harassment after a complaint filed by Olympic boxing gold medalist Imane Khelif, who faced a deluge of false claims about her gender during the Summer Games that she called bullying.
Khelif’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, first filed the legal complaint on Friday to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crime, a unit that combats online hate speech. The Prosecutor’s Office said that it had opened an investigation on charges of “cyber harassment based on gender, public insults based on gender, public incitement to discrimination and public insults on the basis of origin,” according to The Associated Press.
After Italian opponent Angela Carini pulled out just seconds into their Olympic fight, citing pain from opening punches, Khelif’s gender was immediately called into question through a series of false claims and transphobic attacks (many of which hinged on racism and sexism) largely taking place on the social platform X, but which quickly spread across the internet and news media.
The legal complaint was filed against X, a common practice under French law to allow investigators to determine the full scope of investigation and identify those at fault. Among those who contributed to the misinformation and transphobic attacks with posts and comments about the Olympian’s gender were Elon Musk and J. K. Rowling, who are specifically called out in the complaint filed by Khelif, however the Paris prosecutor’s office has not named specific suspects.
Rowling posted to her 14.2 million followers a picture from Khelif’s fight with Italian boxer Carini, accusing the former of being a man who was “enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.” Musk shared a post from swimmer Riley Gaines that claimed “men don’t belong in women’s sports” quote-posting with: “Absolutely.”
Khelif’s coach, Pedro Díaz, who began training with Khelif in February 2023, told Variety, “I had never seen anything so disgusting in my life.” The coach, who has participated in the training of 21 Olympic champions prior to the Algerian boxer, said he asked Khelif to refrain from looking at social media so she “wouldn’t lose her focus on winning the gold medal.”
“She’s so smart and has such an amazing motivation,” he said, adding that her gold medal win “felt like the most rewarding victory of my career as a coach.”
