MANILA, Philippines – Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer at the center of a gender dispute at the Paris Games, has filed a formal legal complaint over alleged “acts of cyber-harassment.”
Khelif’s lawyer Nabil Boudi told several media outlets that the complaint was filed on Friday, August 9, at the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, then later told Variety that Harry Potter author JK Rowling and billionaire Elon Musk were named in the complaint.
Rowling, who has over 14 million followers on X, had posted on the social media platform after Khelif’s foe in the Olympic round of 16, Italy’s Angela Carini, decided to quit after just 46 seconds:
“The smirk of a male who knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered.”
Musk, who owns X, also posted that “men don’t belong in women’s sports.”
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office told Variety that an investigation had been launched.
“All that is being said about me on social media is immoral. I want to change the minds of people around the world,” Khelif said on Saturday, August 11.
Khelif, who bagged the Olympic welterweight gold, got caught up in a gender row storm along with fellow champion Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.
Both boxers were disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) from the 2023 World Championships, which said a sex chromosome test had ruled both of them ineligible.
They are competing in the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stripped the IBA of its status as the sport’s governing body in 2023 and took control of organizing the boxing in Paris.
The IOC rejected the results of the IBA-ordered tests on Khelif and Lin as arbitrary and illegitimate, saying there was no reason to conduct them. – with a report from Reuters/Rappler.com