Heckler’s veto at the turnstiles

Last week, authorities in England banned fans of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending the team’s November 6 match against Aston Villa in Birmingham, calling the event “high risk.”

The ban comes on the heels of a terror attack on Jews attending Yom Kippur services about 90 miles north in Manchester. Birmingham police cited security concerns for their decision, ostensibly anticipating a repeat of last year’s violence between Maccabi fans, Ajax Amsterdam fans, and protestors before a match in Holland. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the recommendation was “the wrong decision” — and local authorities should listen.

Security concerns must never become a cudgel for viewpoint discrimination. By excluding only Maccabi fans, Birmingham authorities effectively granted critics of the team, or its home nation, a heckler’s veto. But police should focus on those who cause violence, not their intended victims. Banning a group only hands intimidators exactly what they want.

As Nico Perrino, executive vice president at FIRE, explained in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination:

Moving forward, we can expect colleges and universities to place even greater emphasis on security ahead of controversial speakers arriving on campus. But administrators must not pass security costs along to speakers or use security concerns as pretext to cancel a speaker’s appearance. They have a moral and legal obligation to redouble their efforts to protect free speech. Rewarding threats of violence by taxing speech or silencing speakers will only invite more threats and more violence.

The UK may not have a First Amendment, but it does risk violating the European Convention on Human Rights, a post-World War II pact designed to prevent exactly this kind of overreach. Article 5 of the ECHR protects “liberty and security,” while Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR protect freedom of speech, assembly, and association. Generally, when security risks threaten these rights, police must take the “least restrictive means” to ensure safety (Faber v. Hungary, 2012). 

In the soccer context, the ECHR allows “drastic” steps only where there’s a “pressing social need.” (Les Authentiks & Supras Auteuil 91 v. France, 2016). In other words, European courts expect targeted responses to violent threats: police should “only detain those … identified as a risk to public safety.” (S., V. & A. v. Denmark, 2018). Similar to the United States’ Brandenburg standard, British police cannot use “premature and indiscriminate” measures against an entire group’s right to associate when a breach of the peace is not imminent. (Laporte v. Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, 2006). 

These decisions support highly individualized action when soccer fans threaten violence at matches. If the means chosen is instead to empty the entire away end, that looks less like security and more like collective punishment, which chills speech and association.

The imperative of freedom demands precision when it comes to threats and violence.

This is about more than a single soccer match. Last month, for example, police arrested comedian Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport for posts on social media about transgender issues (London’s Metropolitan Police has since announced it will stop investigating “non-crime hate incidents,” and no charges followed Linehan’s arrest). And as FIRE senior fellow Jacob Mchangama wrote, “more than 30 people a day were being arrested for various online offenses” in England last April.

Across the UK, police continue to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests in recent months. Police have arrested over 2,000 protesters demonstrating against the ban on the pro-Palestine organizing group Palestine Action, while police unlawfully detained a woman in Kent for posting a “free Gaza” sign. The London Metropolitan Police even restricted pro-Palestine protests amid “public safety” concerns — the same rationale Birmingham authorities cite here. These examples make it clear that government imprecision in response to threatened violence knows no ideological bounds.

Just as the UK government should not shut down pro-Palestinian protests, the answer here cannot be to sideline Israeli fans from public life. Keeping people safe from violence is a core role of government. But the imperative of freedom demands precision when it comes to threats and violence. The Birmingham police should reverse this decision and protect supporters and protestors alike when Maccabi Tel Aviv takes to the pitch in Birmingham on November 6.