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EU: COUNTER-TERRORISM COMES TO SPORT: Council of the European Union: Annex to the Handbook for police and security authorities concerning cooperation at major events with an international dimension

01 January 2012

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EU: COUNTER-TERRORISM COMES TO SPORT: Council of the European Union: Annex to the Handbook for police and security authorities concerning cooperation at major events with an international dimension (pdf) adopted at the Justice and Home Affairs Council, 13-14 December 2011. This Annex is added to: Council Recommendation of 6 December 2007 concerning a Handbook for police and security authorities concerning cooperation at major events with an international dimension (pdf). The Annex embraces: "all participants of such events – sportsmen, spectators, organisers and bystanders" and include some classic statements:

"a terrorist attack is a specific kind of disturbances of public order and thus requires to a large extent different counter-measures than those regarding non-terrorist unlawful acts." And one of the main traits of sports events is that:

"sports fans who can be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, prone to disturb public order by clashes with fans of opposite teams or to commit other unlawful acts. In such an environment it is relatively easy for a range of extremists or terrorists to blend into the crowd and conduct an attack" and intelligence should be gathered on "groups of radically-oriented individuals pretending to be sports fans" [emphasis added]

One of the counter-measures should be "not to have a large amount of uniformed security staff" but rather: "staff wearing civilian clothes".

And: Council of the European Union discusses the legal possibilities for exit, entry and stadium bans for sports fans

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