Imane Khelif: French prosecutors investigating gender-based cyber harassment of Algerian Olympic champ

PARIS (AP) — French prosecutors opened an investigation into a web based harassment grievance made by Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif after a torrent of criticism and false claims about her intercourse through the Summer season Video games, the Paris prosecutor’s workplace stated Wednesday.

The athlete’s lawyer Nabil Boudi filed a authorized grievance Friday with a particular unit within the Paris prosecutor’s workplace that combats on-line hate speech.

Boudi stated the boxer was focused by a “misogynist, racist and sexist marketing campaign” as she gained gold within the girls’s welterweight division, turning into a hero in her native Algeria and bringing world consideration to girls’s boxing.

The prosecutor’s workplace stated it had acquired the grievance and its Workplace for the Combat in opposition to Crimes in opposition to Humanity and Hate Crime had opened an investigation on prices of “cyber harassment primarily based on gender, public insults primarily based on gender, public incitement to discrimination and public insults on the idea of origin.”

Khelif was thrust right into a worldwide conflict over gender identification and regulation in sports activities after her first combat in Paris, when Italian opponent Angela Carini pulled out simply seconds into the match, citing ache from opening punches.

Claims that Khelif was transgender or a person erupted on-line. The Worldwide Olympic Committee defended her and denounced these peddling misinformation. Khelif stated that the unfold of misconceptions about her “harms human dignity.”

Amongst those that referred to Khelif as a person in vital on-line posts have been Donald Trump and J. Okay. Rowling. Tech billionaire Elon Musk re-posted a remark calling Khelif a person.

Khelif’s authorized grievance was filed in opposition to “X,” as a substitute of a selected perpetrator, a standard formulation below French legislation that leaves it as much as investigators to find out which individual or group might have been at fault.

The Paris prosecutor’s workplace didn’t title particular suspects.

The event got here after Khelif returned to Algeria, the place she met with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Wednesday and can be welcomed by household later this week in her hometown of Ain Mesbah.

In Algeria, Khelif’s former coach Mustapha Bensaou stated the boxer’s grievance in France was initiated by the Algerian authorities and may “function a lesson in defending the rights and honor (of athletes) in Algeria and all over the world.”

“All these concerned can be prosecuted for violating Imane’s dignity and honor,” Bensaou stated in an interview with The Related Press. He added: “The assaults on Imane have been designed to interrupt her and undermine her morale. Thank God, she triumphed.”

The investigation is one among a number of underway by France’s hate crimes unit which can be related to the Olympics.

It is usually investigating alleged loss of life threats and cyberbullying in opposition to Kirsty Burrows, an official in control of the IOC’s unit for safeguarding and psychological well being, after she defended Khelif throughout a information convention in Paris. Underneath French legislation, the crimes, if confirmed, carry jail sentences that vary from two to 5 years and fines starting from 30,000 to 45,000 euros.

The unit can also be analyzing complaints over loss of life threats, harassment or different abuse concentrating on six individuals concerned within the Video games’ opening ceremony, together with its director Thomas Jolly.

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