Category Archives: Spain

Court upholds Catalan city’s veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Spanish court has upheld a ban by a city on face-covering Islamic veils worn in municipal buildings.

In 2010, the city of Lleida became the first Spanish one to impose such a ban. But the Catalan regional Superior Justice Tribunal suspended it following an appeal by a Muslim association that claimed it violated basic rights.

The court ruled Wednesday that the northeastern city was within its rights to ban the clothing in municipal buildings for security and identification purposes. It also backed Lleida’s argument that the veils are discriminatory.

Other Spanish towns have taken similar steps but their burqa bans have yet to take effect.

Lleida’s one is largely symbolic since only about 3 percent of Lleida’s population is Muslim and very few wear face-covering garments.

Associated Press, 9 June 2011

Catalan far right capitalises on anti-Muslim sentiment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Plataforma per CatalunyaIt’s a blunt campaign message – a video shows three attractive young women in miniskirts skipping with a rope in the Spanish city of Igualada, to the accompaniment of a traditional Catalan folk song.

Suddenly, the image changes to “Igualada 2015” and shows three women dressed in burkas skipping to the rhythm of an Arab song.

Plataforma per Catalunya is a far-right party created nine years ago by former supporters of General Francisco Franco in the north-eastern industrial province of Catalonia, and running in Sunday’s regional elections in Spain. Last year the party gained almost 3 per cent of the vote in the regional elections and now expects to increase its local vote five-fold, going from 17 to more than 100 council members across Catalonia and possibly winning control of some cities.

Plataforma per Catalunya is riding a growing wave of anti-immigration sentiment, where many blame foreigners – 12 per cent of the Spanish population – for rising crime and a lack of jobs, in a country with 20 per cent official unemployment.

“We didn’t have much money so I did this video to create an impact, but I never imagined the huge reaction it would provoke,” Roberto Hernando, the party’s number two candidate and director of the video, told The Scotsman yesterday. “We keep getting e-mails and letters from people across Spain begging us to expand nationally. With this crisis we shouldn’t allow more immigrants into the country, especially Muslims who want to impose their culture upon others.”

Scotsman, 19 May 2011

Catalan court suspends veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Catalunya High Court has suspended the ban on the Burkha in public places imposed by Lleida city council in October. The verdict, passed on Tuesday, January 12, says the ban will be lifted until a decision has been made by a judge on the appeal put forward by the Muslim association Watani.

On October 8, 2010, the city council forbade the wearing of not only Burkhas but also other Muslim headgear such as the niqaband the hiyab – which only cover the wearer’s hair – in any public building. This means indoor markets, public transport, community centres and council-owned buildings. When the prohibition came into full effect on December 9, it made Lleida the first town in Spain to have taken such a radical step.

But members of Watani say this is discrimination on religious grounds, since many women choose to wear niqabs and hiyabs, rather than being forced to by their husbands or male relatives. Watani’s lawyer, Carlos Antolí, believes the association has a strong case on these grounds.

thinkSPAIN, 17 January 2011

Catalan town becomes first in Spain to ban veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

LleidaA northern Spanish town brought into force Thursday a ban on Islamic face-covering veils in municipal buildings, the first such decree in the country.

The town of Lleida, population 120,000, approved in July a municipal ban on body-covering burqas or face-covering niqab garments at about 130 locations, ranging from civic centres to swimming pools. The law, implemented Thursday, was the first of its kind in Spain, where face-covering Islamic garments are seldom seen despite a sharp rise in immigration from Muslim countries over the past decade.

“I believe the burqa and the hijab, as well as similar garments that completely cover the face are an attack against equality between men and women, they are an attack against women’s dignity,” Lleida mayor Angel Ros said. “I believe also that equality is something which our society has fought several years for and there can be no reason, not religious, not cultural, that attacks this basic principle.”

The law prohibits the “use of the veil and other clothes and accessories which cover the face and prevent identification in buildings and installations of the town hall.” Repeat offenders face fines of €600.

AFP, 9 December 2010

Catalan mayor closes ‘too popular’ mosque, tells Muslims to ‘pray at home’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Spanish mayor has told Muslim worshippers to “pray at home” and closed the town’s mosque because it was too popular. Angel Ros, the socialist mayor of Lleida, in the northeastern region of Catalonia, complained that the mosque was too full and closed it on Wednesday until further notice.

The building, a former garage used to service trucks, was often filled with crowds exceeding a thousand people, the council said, when the authorised limit for the venue is 240. A new mosque is under construction on the outskirts of the town but work had been stalled because of a lack of financing during the economic crisis.

“The municipality has no obligation to provide places of worship,” Mr Ros said in response to complaints from the town’s Muslim population over the closure. “Those that wish can pray at home, as I do,” he added.

The move follows a recent ban on women wearing the burka or niqab in municipal building in the Catalan town. In June Lleida was the first town council in Spain to introduce a ban, which has since been adopted by half a dozen other councils, including Barcelona, the capital of the region.

Abdelwahab Houzi, the local imam, said the mosque closure had added to the Muslim community’s sense of “persecution” by authorities.

Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2010

Spanish parliament rejects total ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Parliament MadridSpain’s Parliament on Tuesday rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.

However, the Socialist government has said it favors including a ban on people wearing burqas in government buildings in an upcoming bill on religious issues to be debated after parliament’s summer vacation break.

Following a lower chamber debate, 183 lawmakers opposed the ban, 162 voted for it and two abstained.

The nonbinding proposal had been put forward by the leading opposition Popular Party, which portrayed it as a measure in support of women’s rights. The ruling Socialist Party opposed the ban.

“It is very difficult to understand how it is that our troops are defending liberty in Afghanistan and the government doesn’t have the courage to do so here, in Spain,” said opposition spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria in Parliament.

Some analysts had interpreted the proposal as an opposition ploy to build their party’s strength amid the economic turmoil and dismal growth prospects that have dogged the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

None of the opposition spokesmen consulted had been able to cite a place in Spain where women routinely wear face-covering veils.

“This has been used politically in a search for electoral support,” said Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Commission of Spain. He said he last saw a woman wearing a burqa in Spain 10 years ago in the southern city of Marbella, where Saudi Arabia’s royal family and other wealthy Arab clans own large homes and estates.

Escudero said the woman could have been a tourist. The only woman he knew who regularly wore a burqa had lived in the southern city of Cordoba and died about a decade ago.

Associated Press, 21 July 2010

Spanish parliament to debate veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spanish lawmakers will debate barring burqas in public, joining other European countries considering similar moves on the grounds that the body-covering garments are degrading to women, the leading opposition party said Sunday.

Top officials of the ruling Socialist Party have indicated they will support the proposal by the opposition Popular Party, making a ban likely unless the country’s highest court rules it unconstitutional.

A debate in Spain’s lower house has been set by the Popular Party for Tuesday or Wednesday, the party said. No vote will be scheduled until after the debate, and Spain’s Parliament usually goes on vacation for a month starting in late July or early August.

Head-covering veils would not be included in a ban as they form a part of traditional Spanish dress, with women often covering their heads with a garment called a mantilla, especially during church services in the south of the country.

Spain has about 1 million Muslims in the nation of 47 million, with most living in the northeastern region of Catalonia and the southern region Andalucia. However, burqas are rarely seen.

Associated Press, 18 July 2010

See also Press Association, 18 July 2010

Europeans approve, Americans reject veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pew pollDays before French lawmakers are due to vote on a bill that would make it illegal for Muslim women to wear full veils in public, a US poll has found that a majority of Europeans back such a ban while Americans reject it.

The French overwhelmingly endorse a ban on Muslim face coverings, also known as the burqa or the niqab, as do majorities in Britain, Germany and Spain, a survey conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project found.

More than eight in 10 people in France said they would approve of a ban on Muslim women wearing full veils in public, including in schools, hospitals and government offices, the survey, conducted over three weeks in April and May, found. Just 17 percent of French people were opposed to a ban on the burqa.

Majorities in Germany (71 percent), Britain (62 percent) and Spain (59 percent) said they would support a burqa ban in their own countries. But in the United States, the opposite was true, with two-thirds of Americans saying they were against a ban on full veils in public.

AFP, 7 July 2010

Download the poll report (pdf) here.

The report finds that in Europe and the US “support for a ban on Muslim women wearing a full veil is more pronounced among those who are age 55 and older” and that “those on the right in France, Britain and Germany are more likely than those on the left to approve of a ban on women wearing the full Islamic veil in public places”.

Catalonia: veil ban motion defeated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Catalonia’s parliament rejected Thursday a move to ban the wearing of the Islamic burqa in public places across the Spanish region after reversing an initial vote.

A resolution moved by conservatives and centre-right nationalists was passed, but opponents said there had been a technical error and some absentees at the moment of the vote.

After the session was suspended, the parliamentary speaker ordered the vote to be put again, prompting a walk-out by the motion’s supporters and a victory for its left-wing opponents.

The motion would have called on the government of the northeastern region to ban the Islamic women’s garment which conceals all but the eyes, in the street as well as in public buildings.

Right-wing deputy Rafael Lopez said it was a question of values, of voicing opposition to clothing which he said kept women in a “degrading prison.”

AFP, 1 July 2010