Police briefly detain teen wearing anti-Ben Gvir T-shirt at Jerusalem basketball game | The Times of Israel

Police on Sunday briefly detained a young fan at a basketball game in Jerusalem who was wearing a T-shirt with a slogan protesting National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, for alleged provocative behavior.

Videos posted to social media show the young fan, who the Haaretz daily reported is 17 years old, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “FCK BNGVR,” being led away by a group of officers through the concession stand area of the Pais Arena complex.

The young man, named on social media as Tom, returned to the stands a short while later without being charged.

“Suddenly 15 policemen approached me and said, “You’re coming with us,'” Haaretz quoted the young man as saying. “They were all huge, and none of them had name tags. I immediately raised my hands and demanded to know why, what I had done. The officer looked at me, looked down on me, and told me that I was causing provocations, that I was disturbing public order.”

The Ynet news site published a denial from the police that the fan was removed from the stands because of the T-shirt protesting Ben Gvir, who is responsible for the Israel Police.

“Contrary to what was claimed… One of the fans insulted the policemen as part of a song by the fans of one of the teams at the basketball game. At one point, the officers removed the fan from the scene and after he apologized he was returned to the stands,” a police spokesman was quoted as saying.

משטרת ישראל מוציאה אוהד מהיציע כי לבש חולצה עם הכיתוב ״פאק בן גביר״. משטרה פוליטית! גועל נפש. pic.twitter.com/rGdlOv89NL

— חיג׳ו (@ido_elkabetz) October 13, 2024

But other spectators quoted by Hebrew news publications and on posts on social media insisted that police officers sought out the young fan because of the T-shirt.

“At halftime, we went outside to buy food, and the police were looking for him in the crowd. Everyone was trying to understand what happened. The police said he violated public order. It was clear to us why he was detained because he was the only one with the shirt against Ben Gvir,” one spectator was quoted by Haaretz as saying.

Other activists took to social in response to the incident, sharing posts with a link to buy FCK BNGVR T-shirts, which mimic the popular FCK HMS t-shirt that sprang up in support of Israel last year after the Hamas terror group’s brutal October 7 massacre in southern Israel.

מחזקים on X: "היוש, שמענו שהחולצות שלנו עוררו קצת סערה הערב… מצוין! הגיע הזמן שבנגביר ידע ש-FCK BNGVR. כאן קונים את המרצ׳ הכי שווה במחאה ???????? https://t.co/NLgZAqub0v" / X

— Alon Antin ???? (@AlonAntin) October 14, 2024

Also responding to the incident on Sunday evening, Labor MK Gilad Kariv charged that the national security minister was putting “pressure on the police to behave like the thought police and persecute protesters.”

In a fiery post on X, he said he hoped that “tens of thousands more T-shirts” would be printed and that the fan in question would sue the police.

Tom is a fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv, a team whose supporters have long had strained relations with police, which some have suggested have a political slant due to the fact that the club’s fanbase is traditionally left-leaning.

Ben Gvir, the leader of the far-right Oztma Yehudit party, has often been the target of public protest for his hardline positions and his staunch opposition to a deal that would release hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

He has also been criticized for his management of the police. Since his tenure began in December 2022, police have regularly employed violence against anti-government protesters. Meanwhile, crime rates, including murder, have risen since Ben Gvir assumed office.

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