Category Archives: Spain

Veil bans spread in Catalonia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There are no burqas on the streets of Tarrés. In fact, there are no Muslims at all in this village of 108 inhabitants in north-east Spain. But that will not stop the parish council debating whether to ban burqas and face-covering niqabs from parts of the village next week.

“It is true that there are no Muslims living in the village now, but this would be a preventive measure in case they come,” said parish councillor Daniel Rivera, from the tiny and openly xenophobic Partit per Catalunya.

Rivera’s motion to ban burqas has outraged many. Other councillors plan to vote against it, but whatever the result, the motion is symptomatic of wider moves in the Catalonia region to ban Islamic veils from public buildings.

Today the nearby provincial capital, Lleida, formally passed a ban that was first announced in May. Women found wearing burqas in public buildings will first be given a warning, but any repeat will lead to a fine of between €300 and €600 (£250-£500).

From Barcelona to Tarragona, bans are being slapped into place across the region. “At this rate we will end up with more bans than burqas,” said the immigration minister, Celestino Corbacho, himself a former town mayor in Catalonia.

The Lleida ban was not passed by the anti-immigrant parties but, as in Barcelona, by a socialist-led council. “This is about equality between men and women,” Mayor Ángel Ros said. “The burqa and the niqab are symbols of the political use of a religious dogmatism that had begun to appear in Lleida.”

Guardian, 2 July 2010

Spain: Amnesty urges politicians to reject veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Amnesty logoThe regional parliament in Catalonia is due to vote on a ban on the use of the face-covering veil and the burqa in public, fueling debates over the freedom of rights in the country.

The motion was put down by two conservative parliament members demanding that Catalonia “adopt the legal reforms necessary to ban the wearing of clothes that totally cover the face.” The ban is expected to be in effect in all public areas as well as public buildings throughout the northeastern region.

Meanwhile, one day ahead of the vote, human rights group Amnesty International called on Catalonia’s lawmakers to remove the motion.

“Any wide-ranging ban will violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who choose to wear a full-face veil as an expression of their identity or beliefs,” John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination in Europe, said. “Women should be free to choose what and what not to wear. This is their right under international human rights law” he added.

The move by Catalonia comes as several other cities, including Barcelona, have approved bans on the use of the Islamic veil in public over the past weeks. Earlier on Monday, Coin – a small town in the southern region of Andalucia – was the first town outside of Catalonia to ban the veil in public buildings.

The banning measures come as the socialist government of Spain argues that the use of such body-covering garments is best opposed through education instead of imposing restrictions. Human rights activists, for their part, maintain that such a ruling would violate the European Convention on Human Rights, which is expected to guarantee the fundamental liberties of individuals.

Press TV, 29 June 2010

See also Amnesty news release, 29 June 2010

Another Spanish town bans the veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A small town in southern Spain on Monday became the latest municipality in the country to ban the use of the face-covering Islamic veil in public buildings.

The municipal council in Coin, a town of some 21,000 inhabitants in the Andalucia region near the city of Malaga, approved the measure by a large majority. The ban will be imposed in all public buildings, including schools and sports centres, but not in the rest of the town.

In recent weeks several municipalities in the northeastern region of Catalonia, including the city of Barcelona, have announced bans on the use of face-covering Islamic veils in public or are considering doing so.

Spain’s upper house of parliament last week also approved a motion calling on Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s socialist government to ban the use of the Islamic veil in public.

Earlier this month Justice Minister Francisco Caamano said the government planned to restrict the use of veils in public places under a proposed new law on religious freedom.

AFP, 28 June 2010

Spanish Senate calls for nationwide ban on veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Spanish Senate on Wednesday approved a motion urging Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government to ban Islamic all-body veils in public places.

The government needed to take legal measures against the niqab, which covers the entire body except for the eyes, and against the burqa, which hides even the eyes, the motion said.

It was approved with the narrow majority of 131 votes against 129, with two conservative parties backing it, while Zapatero’s Socialists and others voted against.

Spain should outlaw “any usage, custom or discriminatory practice that limits the freedom of women,” said the document, which was drafted by the main conservative opposition People’s Party (PP).

The Socialists, on the other hand, argued that the use of all-body veils was best opposed through education and by using the current legislation, which already prohibits people with covered faces from entering public buildings.

Eight Spanish municipalities, located mainly in the north-eastern region of Catalonia, have outlawed or are planning to outlaw all-body veils in public places. The Senate is now seeking a nationwide ban.

Critics say the Spanish debate on the burqa and niqab is only political point-scoring, because all-body veils are rare in the country.

DPA, 23 June 2010

Spanish government announces plans to ban veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cruzada contra el burkaSpain’s government plans to ban the use of the Islamic burqa in public places under a proposed new law on religious freedom, the justice minister said Tuesday.

“We believe that there are things like the burqa which are hard to reconcile with human dignity and which especially pose problems of identification in public places,” Francisco Caamano told reporters. The new law “will have to include measures on these symbols which impede identification in public places” for reasons of “security”, Caamano said.

His remarks came a day after the mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, announced it would be the first large city in Spain to ban the use of the full-face Islamic veil in public buildings.

Two other towns in the northeastern region of Catalonia, Lerida and El Venrell, have recently imposed bans on the use of the Islamic veil in public buildings. Two more, Tarragona and Gerona, are considering similar measures, as is Coin in the southern region of Andalucia.

AFP, 15 June 2010

Spanish bishop says Muslims will not be allowed to worship in Cordoba cathedral

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mesquita CordobaBishop Demetrio Fernández González of the southern Spanish city of Cordoba, once the seat of Muslim power in Spain, said that he will not permit Islamic worship at the city’s cathedral. The cathedral was formerly a mosque, which in turn had been built on the site of a Catholic church.

Sharing the cathedral with Muslims, Bishop Fernández González said in an interview, “is a euphemism which means: get Catholics out of here … The answer to the question about sharing the Cathedral is that no, we’re not, because this place has been a Catholic church 16 centuries, while Muslims have been four and half centuries.”

“If I let in the Muslims pray in the cathedral of Cordoba, it is equivalent to Catholics saying goodbye and good night; it would be irresponsible,” he added. “There are things that are shared and others that are not, and the cathedral of Córdoba is not shared with Muslims.”

Catholic Culture, 14 June 2010

For earlier coverage of this issue see here.

Barcelona to ban veil in municipal buildings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Barcelona is to become the first major Spanish city to bar the use of face-covering Islamic veils in municipal buildings.

City Mayor Jordi Hereu announced the measure Monday but insisted it was not specifically religious. He says it is aimed at all dress that impedes identification, and thus includes motorcycle helmets and ski masks.

Lleida, also in the Spanish region of Catalonia, last month became the first Spanish city to regulate use of body-covering burqas or face-covering niqab garments.

Barcelona town hall said the measure was largely symbolic given that it is unusual to see women wearing burqas or niqabs in the city, which has a population of 1.5 million.

Associated Press, 14 June 2010

See also Reuters, which reports that a Partido Popular councillor has complained that the ban does not go far enough: “The mayoral decree is a half-measure, because as well as forbidding the burqa and niqab in public installations, it is necessary to forbid it on the street.”

‘Artificial debate’ on veil in Spain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Very few Spaniards have ever seen a Muslim woman dressed in a burqa – an all-body veil – walking on local streets.There are no more than an estimated few dozen burqas in the country of 46 million residents, yet the garment has become the object of a heated debate.

Seven municipalities have announced or are considering bans on the burqa, a conservative party is taking the matter to the senate, and some Muslim leaders have vowed to take legal action to reverse the bans. “This is an entirely artificial debate, with political motives behind it,” Encarnacion Gutierrez, secretary-general of Madrid’s Islamic Culture Foundation (FUNCI), told the German Press Agency dpa.

Spain has about 1.3 million Muslims. Most of them are of Moroccan origin. It is not rare for Muslim women in Spain to wear the Islamic headscarf or hijab, which covers the hair. Yet very few of them wear the niqab, a garment covering all but the eyes, and even fewer don the burqa, which includes a semi-transparent veil hiding the eyes.

The burqa, which is worn mainly in Afghanistan, and the niqab are thought to have a pre-Islamic origin. Yet opposition to all-body veils in the West has encouraged some Muslim women to claim them as a sign of their religious identity. In the north-eastern Spanish city of Lleida, for instance, some women reportedly started wearing the niqab after the municipality became the first in Spain to ban all-body veils from public buildings in May.

El Vendrell followed Lleida’s example on Friday, and five other north-eastern municipalities are considering similar bans. Muslim leaders from 11 mosques in the region intend to defend women’s “democratic” right to wear the burqa or niqab at the Constitutional Court.

“I cover myself to feel closer to Allah,” said Zohra Nia, a 38- year-old Moroccan woman who wears the niqab. “My goal is to hide my beauty” from men other than her husband or close relatives, Nia told the daily El Pais in Tarragona, one of the municipalities which are expected to outlaw the burqa and the niqab.

Spain’s main opposition conservative People’s Party (PP) is taking the debate to the senate, which it wants to adopt a motion calling on Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government to ban all- body veils from public places. “Most Spaniards regard the use of these garments as being discriminating, harmful and contrary to the dignity of women,” conservative senator Alicia Sanchez-Camacho said. The burqa is also a security issue, because its wearer cannot be identified, she pointed out.

Zapatero’s Socialist government has not taken a clear stance on the issue. Spain does not even have nationwide rules governing the use of the hijab, with some schools allowing pupils to wear it, while others expel girls who refuse to remove it in class.

Gutierrez says she opposes the use of the burqa, but sees bans as doing more harm than good. Debates on subjects such as the burqa could become “explosive” in Spain, which created an “anti-Muslim” Christian identity after expelling the last of its former Muslim rulers in the late 15th century, she said. It was contradictory for Spain to allow women to wear extremely scanty clothing, but to question women’s right to cover their bodies, Gutierrez said.Covering women’s bodies in a sign of chastity is not only an Islamic concept, but forms part of Christianity and other traditions as well, she pointed out.

DPA, 13 June 2010

Another Catalan town council to consider veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The full council of El Vendrell (Tarragona), in line with the motion adopted in Lleida, will examine in the second week of June a proposal from CiU, to prohibit the use of the burqa and niqab in public facilities in the municipality.

To date, the CiU initiative has not been seconded by any other relevant council of the Tarragona region, although the PP de Catalunya is “gathering information” in the capital of Tarragona, and its leader, Alejandro Fernandez, advanced to meet the mayor, Josep Felix Ballesteros to reach a consensus position on this matter, “without trying to draw political benefits of such a sensitive issue.”

Fernandez made no secret that he would be in favour of banning the burka “not only in public facilities but also in public places” because “the standard bearer for the progressive multiculturalism has a very clear limit on human rights.”

Barcelona Reporter, 2 June 2010

See also “Spanish towns consider Islamic veil ban: reports”, Expatica, 2 June 2010