Abstract
During the 2012 London Olympic Summer Games, Indigenous boxer and member of the Australian national team Damien Hooper was nearly disqualified from Olympic competition for entering the ring wearing a shirt inscribed with the Aboriginal flag of Australia. National Olympic officials cited charter rule 50, which forbids political, religious, or racial demonstrations inside an Olympic venue, to immediately reprimand this Indigenous athlete for his actions. Using the Hooper example, this paper argues that Olympic principles and governing laws undoubtedly infringe on the fundamental human rights of marginalized and oppressed populations throughout the world. Specifically, Olympic Charter rule 50 categorically sustains the illegal missions of colonizing settler governments that attempt to rule over Indigenous people and their lands. Within the Olympic domain, Indigenous athletes are forced to assume the identity of the colonizing settler citizenry, thereby further validating the political authority of an illegally imposed governing structure.
