France has launched a cyberbullying investigation following a complaint by Algerian Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif, prosecutors told CBS News on Wednesday, after the athlete endured backlash over misconceptions about her gender.
Khelif's lawyer, Nabil Boudi, announced on social media last week that the boxing champion had filed a complaint for online harassment, calling it "a new fight: that of justice, dignity and honor."
"The criminal investigation will determine who initiated this misogynistic, racist and sexist campaign, but will also have to focus on those who fueled this digital lynching," Boudi said on social media. "The unfair harassment suffered by the boxing champion will remain the biggest stain on these Olympic Games."
Khelif won the women's 66-kilogram boxing final against China's Yang Liu at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
She and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting were disqualified from last year's boxing world championship after allegedly failing gender eligibility testing, the AFP news agency reported. The Russian president of the IBA, Umar Kremlev, targeted both athletes, claiming they had undergone "genetic testing that shows that these are men," AFP reported.
Paris' public prosecutor's office told CBS News that it had received Khelif's complaint on Monday, which was referred to the city's office for combating crimes against humanity and hate crimes for an "investigation into the counts of cyberbullying due to gender, public insult due to gender, public provocation to discrimination and public insult due to origin."
"I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects," Khelif said during an interview in Arabic earlier this month. "It can destroy people. It can kill people's thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying."
Frank Andrews contributed to this report.
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