Algeria’s Imane Khelif files harassment case after gender row

Olympic boxing champion’s lawyer condemns ‘speculations fuelled by malicious individuals’ who posted grievances online.

Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer at the centre of a gender dispute at the Paris Olympic Games, has filed a legal complaint against the social media platform X for harassment.

The gold medal winner’s lawyer said on Saturday that she filed the formal complaint in France. Khelif and another gold medallist, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, have been at the centre of a high-profile dispute over gender identity that has provoked heated debate on social media.

Citing court documents, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that the boxing champion “filed a complaint against X” with the Paris correctional court, the national centre for combating online harassment.

Khelif’s lawyer Nabil Boudi said the complaint was filed on Friday.

“The boxer Imane Khelif has decided to begin a new fight, a fight for justice, dignity and honour,” he said in a statement as he announced the complaint for “aggravated online harassment … [had been filed] to Paris prosecutors”.

“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.

Individuals in the complaint were described as “important political figures” with wide followings on X, the social media company owned by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The posts targeting Khelif “exceeded 100 million views,” it added.

The speculation was “fuelled by malicious individuals,” Boudi said. “The investigation will determine who was behind this misogynist, racist and sexist campaign but will also have to concern itself with those who fed the online lynching.”

The furore over Khelif’s eligibility drew fire from the likes of former United States President Donald Trump, Harry Potter author JK Rowling and several right-wing French politicians.

After her gold medal victory on Friday night, Khelif said winning was the perfect response to “attacks” and “bullying” and declared: “I am a woman like any other.”

The questions regarding Khelif’s and Lin’s gender were sparked by the International Boxing Association (IBA).

At a news conference last week, the IBA’s Kremlin-linked president, Umar Kremlev, claimed the organisation had run “genetic testing that shows that these are men”.

The IBA threw both boxers out of the world championships in 2023. The International Olympic Committee, however, cleared them to box in Paris.

Asked if she would take measures similar to Khelif, Lin said: “This is something I will discuss with my team. We will decide later what the next step will be.”

Following an early round victory for Khelif in the ring, Rowling referred to the boxer as a “male” and accused her of “enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered”.

Trump declared in capital letters on his Truth Social outlet: “I will keep men out of women’s sports”. His vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance, argued that “Kamala Harris’s ideas about gender” have led “to a grown man pummelling a woman in a boxing match”.