Imane Khelif and the complaint for “moral harassment and cyberbullying”. Will the right now apologize?

Imane Khelif has filed a complaint. This was certainly not the epilogue she imagined for her Olympic experience in Paris 2024 crowned by a gold medal, to which is added a complaint, filed with the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, against unknown persons for “acts of aggravated cyberbullying”. For days his photos have been scrutinized in every detail in search of “masculinity”. It has been written and said about Imane Khelif anything, always wrong, trying to define it as she pleases: man, transgender, intersex, man become woman, man in transition. All fake news, as we wrote here. All violent words, coming especially from environments linked to the extreme right and not, to which she chose not to respond until the last podium. Then, in silence, she won the gold medal, bringing to her country, Algeria, a recognition that has the value of a miracle, not because Imane Khelif did not deserve it but because of the violence and the little consideration to which women are subjected in Algeria.

After wearing the gold medal around her neck and singing the national anthem, in tears, Imane Khelif gave an interview to BBC and once again he chose not to respond to hate with words of hate but by reiterating a message that today, with bullying already rampant among boys and girls in elementary schools, should be taken for granted: «My message to the whole world is that Everyone should commit to respecting the Olympic principles and avoiding bullying. This is a message of Olympic values. I hope people stop bullying and commit to respecting the Olympic charter. We are at the Olympics to perform as athletes. I hope we will not see similar attacks in the future.”

Giorgia Meloni (Prime Minister), Ignazio La Russa (President of the Senate), Matteo Salvini (Minister of Infrastructure and Transport), Daniela Santanché (Minister of Tourism), are just some of the political exponents of the right of our country, currently in government, who have spoken out, more or less indirectly, against the Algerian boxer. Prime Minister Meloni did so by addressing the Italian boxer Angela Carini who chose to abandon the match against Khelif saying she had taken a blow “too hard”. “I know you won’t give up Angela, and I know that one day you will earn with effort and sweat what you deserve. In a competition that is finally fair”, wrote the Prime Minister on social media.

The second highest office of the State, Ignazio La Russa, instead expressed himself by defining Imane Khelif as an “intersex Algerian”.

But also “Algerian transgender”.

Minister Daniela Santanché called into question the «woke policy», one of Elon Musk’s favourite arguments against transgender people. In English the word means «awake», «aware», but over the years, starting with Donald Trump, the term has been distorted in its meaning to transform it into «negative», a bit like «gender theory» that does not exist and the woke that, to quote Matteo Salvini, «achieves the cancellation of all identities».

These are some of the posts that have appeared on the Internet (still present at the moment) and spread by those who should fight the politics of hate and not instead make it become a tool to gather consensus and fuel homotransphobia and the discriminations that are already widely present in Italy against LGBTQ+ people and women. In the last year in our country a case of violence or discrimination against LGBTQ+ people has been recorded every two days (Arcigay data).

The estimate made by Nabil Boudi, lawyer of the Algerian champion, regarding the views of offensive content “published by important political figures that have turned into an ordeal for Khelif” is around two million. “After winning a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, boxer Imane Khelif has decided to fight a new battle: that of justice, dignity and honor,” reads the note issued by the lawyer. “Madame Khelif has filed a complaint for acts of aggravated cyberbullying of which she was a victim in order to fight against online hatred.” And finally, the conclusion on the stain that inevitably remains on the Paris 2024 Olympics: “the unjust harassment suffered by the boxing champion will remain the biggest stain on these Olympic Games. Thecriminal investigation will determine who started this misogynistic, racist and sexist campaign, and must also focus on those who fueled this digital lynching». A sad page, very distant from the values ​​of sport, which nevertheless gives us a happy ending, albeit bitter: that of a woman who had a dream that she had cultivated since she was a child and made it come true. Despite everything and everyone. Will the right be able to apologize to her?