France launches probe over alleged cyber bullying of Olympic gender-row boxer Imane Khelif

PARIS – France has launched a cyber bullying probe following a complaint by Algerian Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif, who was at the centre of a gender controversy at the Paris Olympic Games, prosecutors said on Aug 14.

The investigation was opened on Aug 13 into “cyber harassment” following the high-profile gender row at the Games, the Paris public prosecutor’s office told AFP.

The athlete’s lawyer Nabil Boudi said last week that Khelif had filed a legal complaint for online harassment, calling it a “fight for justice”.

It was reported that the Algerian’s lawsuit has also named Tesla and X owner Elon Musk as well as famous British author J.K. Rowling after both had criticised her participation in Paris.

“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,” Boudi said at the time.

Khelif won the women’s 66kg final against China’s Yang Liu in a unanimous points decision, despite the pressure and distraction of having been the focus of intense scrutiny in the French capital during the Olympics.

Together with Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-ting, who won the 57kg women’s final, Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after they failed gender-eligibility testing.

The International Boxing Association (IBA), which organises that event, said that its tests revealed that both boxers have the male XY chromosome in them.

The IBA’s Russian president Umar Kremlev has also targeted both athletes, claiming that Khelif and Lin had undergone “genetic testing that shows that these are men”.

However, they were cleared by the International Olympic Committee to compete in Paris, setting the stage for one of the biggest controversies of the Games.

Their victories in each round leading to their gold-medal wins also sparked further outcry and renewed questions over whether athletes with differences of sex development should compete in women’s competitions.

But Khelif has insisted that she is “a woman like any other”.

“I was born a woman, lived a woman and competed as a woman,” she told reporters about her eligibility.

Back home, she received a hero’s welcome at Algiers airport on Aug 12. The crowd who were present cheered her with chants of “Tahia Imane” (Long live Imane).

Khelif also said she wanted “to thank the Algerian people who supported me in this ordeal and gave me strength”.

Similarly, the Chinese Taipei government and public have thrown their support behind Lin, turning out in large crowds for organised watch parties in her hometown of New Taipei City during her bouts in Paris.

To welcome the athletes flying home on Aug 13 on a chartered plane by home carrier Eva Airways, President Lai Ching-te “ordered that three F-16 fighter jets be sent to escort the flight home”.

According to footage released by the Defence Ministry, the jets coasted alongside the green-tailed commercial plane, occasionally releasing celebratory flares into the morning sky.

The athletes also got a hero’s welcome on land, with fans swarming Lin at the airport for autographs and wefies. AFP