Algerian gold medallist boxer Imane Khelif, 25, has filed a harassment complaint against social media platform X, Le Monde reported on Aug. 11, 2024.

According to Le Monde, the complaint centred around online "moral harassment".

The complaint condemned "speculation fueled by malicious individuals" who were referred to in the complaint as "important political figures".

Khelif won the gold medal for the women's welterweight division at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Aug. 10, beating China's Yang Liu at the Court Phillippe-Chatrier.

Gender row

Khelif was first put under the spotlight when she faced off against Italian boxer Angela Carini on Aug. 1.

Carini withdrew from the match 46 seconds into the first round.

Images of Carini falling to her knees, crying and refusing to shake Khelif's hand went viral on social media.

Carini later said that Khelif's punch "hurt too much", and that she had "never felt a punch like this".

Prominent figures like J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk chimed in on X, alleging that Khelif was male:

Could any picture sum up our new men’s rights movement better? The smirk of a male who’s knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he’s just shattered. #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/Q5SbKiksXQ

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 1, 2024

The controversy also extended to Taiwanese boxer and gold medallist Lin Yu Ting, who was also accused of being male.

Many took to social media to accuse Khelif and Lin of being either transgender athletes or male athletes.

Both athletes, however, insist that they are women.

Disqualified from IBA

Both Lin and Khelif had previously been disqualified by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023 for having failed undisclosed and unverified gender tests, conducted back in 2022.

During a chaotic press conference on Aug. 5, IBA president Umar Kremlev and chief executive Chris Roberts provided conflicting statements about the gender tests.

Roberts claimed that the pair had undergone "chromosome tests" that disqualified them, while Kremlev claimed that they underwent tests to determine their testosterone levels.

The IBA moreover claimed that the tests were sent to two different laboratories that are accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), BBC reported. 

However, WADA told BBC Sport that "it does not oversee gender tests and its work only relates to anti-doping matters." 

IBA stripped of its status by the IOC

The IBA, moreover, had been stripped of its status as amateur boxing's governing body by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) back in 2019 due to issues surrounding its governance and regulation.

According to AP News, the IBA is not only beleaguered by "decades of troubled governance and longstanding accusations of a thorough lack of normal transparency in nearly every aspect of its dealings, particularly in recent years", but also has "bad history" with the IOC. 

Khelif and Lin moreover have documentation stating that they are female. For these reasons, the IOC permitted them to participate in the Olympics.

The IOC also disparaged IBA's earlier decision to disqualify Lin and Khelif, claiming that it was done "without any proper procedure".

IOC spokesman Mark Adams added: “I need hardly say if we start acting on suspicions against every athlete of whatever, then we go down a very bad route."

In a press conference on Aug. 4, the IOC called the IBA's gender tests that led to the boxers' disqualification "arbitrary" and "so flawed that it's impossible to engage with it."

IOC president Thomas Bach also insisted that Lin and Khelif are women: “We have two boxers who are born as women, who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman and have competed for many years as women."

Bach linked the attacks from Kremlev, president of the IBA, to the IOC's decision to disqualify Russia from the Olympics due to the ongoing war with Ukraine.

Bach alleged that the IBA's accusations were part of "a defamation campaign against France, against the Games, against the IOC.”

Harassment complaint

Khelif's lawyer, Nabil Boudi, claimed that messages posted by prominent figures attacking Khelif reached over 100 million views on the X platform, Le Monde wrote.

Boudi also said that this was an "ordeal" for Khelif.

Khelif also addressed her detractors after her victory on Aug. 10:

I am fully qualified to take part in this competition. I’m a woman like any other woman. I was born a woman, I lived a woman, I competed as a woman, there’s no doubt about that. [The detractors] are enemies of success, that is what I call them. And that also gives my success a special taste because of these attacks.

Khelif called the attacks made against her on social media "extremely bad" and "meaningless".

She said that the IBA "hates" her and that she does not know why.

Addressing the IBA, she said: "I send them a single message: with this gold medal, my dignity, my honour is above everything else.”

Top photo from jeuxolympics/Instagram & imane_khelif_10/Instagram.