Boxer Imane Khelif Files Complaint For Online Harassment With French Prosecutors

Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif has filed a legal complaint in France for online harassment after a rain of criticism and false claims about her sex during the Paris Olympics, her lawyer said Sunday.

Khelif, who will be Algeria’s flag bearer in the closing ceremony, won gold 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 Friday with a special unit in the Paris prosecutor’s office for combating online hate speech, alleging “aggravated cyber-harassment” targeting Khelif, lawyer Nabil Boudi said. In a statement, he 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 doesn’t name an alleged perpetrator but leaves it to investigators to determine who could be at fault.

Khelif was unwittingly thrust into a worldwide clash 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. False 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 spoken in defense of Khelif.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it received Burrows’