Within hours of winning the gold medal in the women’s 66kg Olympic boxing match against China’s Yang Liu on Friday, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who has been ruled to be a man by the International Boxing Association, filed a complaint against X/Twitter with the Paris court system’s center for combating online hate. He’s upset that people have objected to him fighting in the women’s division.
Millions of people around the world have questioned why someone like Khelif, who has had all the advantages of a testosterone-fueled physical development, should be allowed by the International Olympics Committee to fight in the women’s category. Without question, he is larger, has the physical characteristics and bone structure of a man, and has crushed his competition. He is not transgender but, according to the IBA, is technically male.
Although Khelif and a Taipei boxer named Lin Yu-Ting, also preparing to fight for gold, claim to be women, they have both X and Y chromosomes, said the International Boxing Association, which confirmed that in a press conference during the Olympic Games. Scientifically, this makes them men who are choosing to box in a category more advantageous to them.
X/Twitter is an American company. This is not the first time that it has been subjected to harassment by the French for allowing people to express their opinions.
On May 26, 2021, six French organizations brought charges against Twitter, both the international company and Twitter France, failing to promptly and systematically remove what the groups said was racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic messages posted on Twitter and reported by its users.
According to Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression center, the associations were UEJF (Union des Etudiants Juifs de France), SOS Homophobie, SOS Racisme, AIJP (J’accuse! Action Internationale Pour la Justice) MRAP (Le Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l’Amitié entre les Peuples) and LICRA (La Ligue Internationale contre le Racisme et l’antisémitisme).
“The organizations’ claims were based on several reports and bailiff’s findings from 2019 and 2020, which allegedly established that only 9 to 28 percent of hateful messages posted on Twitter were removed within 48 hours,” the university reports.
The Paris court confirmed the judgment of the Paris Tribunal and ordered Twitter International Company to pay 1500 euros to each of organizations. The facts and documents of this case can be found at this link.
France does not protect freedom of expression in the same way it is generally protected in the United States. According to French law, an insult of a person or a group of people because of their origin or their membership or their non-membership, true or supposed, to an ethnic group, a nation, sexual identity, gender identity, disability, a race or a specific religion is punishable by a fine of €500, or up to €3000 for a repeat offense.
In England, where riots have broken out as people protest the violence of immigrants who have taken control of the country, one police chief has warned that he will be coming for Americans who post information about the riots, he will extradite them, and he throw them in British prison.
“We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News. When asked if that meant Americans, he said, “Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law.”
