Olympic champion boxer Imane Khelif filed a complaint in France that named billionaire Elon Musk and author J.K. Rowling as among the high-profile figures to amplify the online attacks against her, according to Variety.
Khelif’s lawyer Nabil Boudi told Variety that Musk and Rowling were named in a criminal complaint that claims she was a victim of cyberharassment related to her gender identity.
Boudi said in a statement posted on X that it was a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign.”
Photo: AFP
Khelif, who won a gold medal for Algeria in women’s welterweight boxing in Paris, faced intense scrutiny during the Olympics of her biological sex and gender identity, including baseless claims that she is transgender. Last year, she was disqualified from the world boxing championships after a controversial boxing association said she failed an eligibility test.
The debate intensified when one of Khelif’s Olympic opponents, Italy’s Angela Carini, surrendered in the first round of their fight, saying she had “never felt a punch like this.” That triggered a flood of hateful messages on social media alleging that Khelif was a man posing as a woman to cheat.
Rowling and Musk were among the high-profile individuals to post about Khelif being a man.
The owner of X, Musk backed a post saying: “Men don’t belong in women’s sports,” accompanied by an image of Carini.
Rowling posted on X a picture of Khelif, describing her smile as “the smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment.”
The post was seen 122 million times as of Wednesday.
A representative for Rowling declined to comment.
Boudi and a representative for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The complaint, filed in the Paris correctional court’s national center for combating hate crimes, was filed against “X,” the French equivalent of “John Doe.” This allows for the investigation of authors of social media posts in question, including those written under pseudonyms.
The case highlights the increasing appetite from law enforcement agencies around the world to crack down on online harms, including hate speech and incitement to violence. The UK has charged about a dozen people with offenses related to online speech following the far-right riots that swept through the country after three girls were killed in an attack on July 29.
The French public prosecutor’s office in Paris confirmed it received a complaint on Monday from Khelif and that the center on hate crimes had launched an investigation into charges of “cyberharassment and public insults on the grounds of gender, public provocation to discrimination and public insults on the grounds of origin.”
Under French law, cyberbullying can carry a prison sentence of up to three years and fines. There have been several several high-profile cases over the past few years, including when 28 individuals were fined and sentenced to jail for up to a year in March for harassing businesswoman Magali Berdah online with repeated death threats and insults.
Separately, several artists involved in the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics filed cyberharassment complaints after facing online threats, including its artistic director Thomas Jolly, drag queen Nicky Doll and DJ Barbara Butsch.
Women’s accessories sold by some of the world’s most popular online shopping firms contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels, authorities in Seoul said yesterday. Chinese giants including Shein, Temu and AliExpress have skyrocketed in popularity around the world in the past few years, offering a vast selection of trendy clothes and accessories at low prices. The explosive growth has led to increased scrutiny of their business practices and safety standards, including in the EU and South Korea, where Seoul officials have been conducting weekly inspections of items sold by online platforms. In the most recent inspection, 144 products from
The US on Monday confirmed that it would resume sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, as concerns over human rights in the kingdom’s Yemen war give way to US hopes for it to play a role in resolving the conflict in Gaza. More than three years after imposing limits on human rights grounds over Saudi Arabian strikes in Yemen, the US Department of State said that it would return to weapons sales “in regular order, with appropriate congressional notification and consultation.” “Saudi Arabia has remained a close strategic partner of the United States, and we look forward to enhancing that partnership,”
Russia yesterday ordered more evacuations in a region bordering Ukraine as it battled to contain an unprecedented push onto its territory by Kyiv’s forces. Ukraine last week sent troops into Russia’s border region of Kursk, in the largest cross-border operation by Kyiv since Moscow launched its offensive more than two years ago. The assault, which has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing, marked the most significant attack by a foreign army on Russian territory since World War II. A top Ukrainian official said that the operation was aimed at stretching Moscow troops and destabilizing the nation after months of slow Russian advances
DEMOCRACY: The Brazilian president’s shifting attitude toward leftist authoritarians is because he does not want to be seen as supporting dictatorships, analysts said Brazil and Nicaragua have expelled each other’s ambassadors in a tit-for-tat diplomatic row, as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appears to recalibrate his approach to authoritarian leftist rulers who were once seen as allies. The dual expulsions this week came amid growing tensions between Lula and another supposedly progressive leader, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose claim of re-election the Brazilian president has yet to acknowledge. Lula and his counterparts in Colombia and Mexico have called on Maduro to release voting tallies from all polling stations to support his win. On Thursday, Brazil announced the expulsion of the Nicaraguan ambassador as