Spanish town bans Muslim religious festivals deemed 'alien to our identity'
The controversial ban was passed in Jumilla, a town in the Murcia region with a population of around 27,000 - roughly 7.5 per cent of whom come from mostly Muslim countries.
The motion was proposed by Spain 's conservative People's Party (PP) and backed by the hard right Vox party.
It prohibits the public facilities such a sports halls and civic centres being used for 'religious, cultural or social activities alien to our identity' unless officially organised by the local council.
Critics say the wording is a thinly veiled attack on Islamic traditions, and have warned that the ruling could breach Spain's constitutionally protected freedom of religion.
The local Vox party openly celebrated the decision, declaring on X: 'Thanks to Vox the first measure to ban Islamic festivals in Spain's public spaces has been passed. Spain is and will be forever the land of Christian people'.
The move prevents Muslims in Jumilla from gathering in public gyms or civic buildings to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, the Islamic festival of sacrifice.
Muslim leaders have condemned the decision.
Mounir Benjelloun Andaloussi Azhari, president of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Organisations, said the ban was a direct attack on the country's Muslim population, calling it 'Islamophobic and discriminatory'.
'They're not going after other religions, they're going after ours,' he told Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Referring to the recent rise of racist rhetoric and attacks, he added: 'We're rather surprised by what's happening in Spain. For the first time in 30 years I feel afraid.'
Legal experts have warned the ban could face a constitutional challenge. Article 16 of Spain's constitution grants freedom of religious belief, with the only restriction being the protection of public order.
The Socialist leader of Murcia, Francisco Lucas, accused the PP of stoking division.
'The PP violates the constitution and puts social cohesion as risk simply in the pursuit of power,' he said on X.
Former Jumilla mayor Juana Guardiola, also from the Socialist party, condemned the rhetoric behind the ban.
'What do they mean by identity? And what about the centuries of Muslim legacy here?,' she said.
Jumilla's history is steeped in Islamic heritage. Once part of the Roman Empire, the town fell to Arab rule in the eighth century, becoming known as Yumil-la.
It remained largely Arab until the 13th century, when it was conquered by Christian forces under King Alfonso X of Castile.
An agreement, the Capitulations of Alcatraz, initially allowed for coexistence - but Arab rule was eventually crushed after Alfonso's death.
The move comes amid growing concerns across Europe about the treatment of religious minorities, with Spain now joining a broader debate about identity, integration, and the boundaries of secularism.
Earlier this year, a primary school in Hampshire, UK, sparked fury after scrapping its annual Easter celebration and service in order to 'respect diverse religious beliefs'.
Norwood Primary School in Eastleigh sent a letter to parents and carers in March informing them that neither their Easter Bonnet Parade nor their Easter Service will be held this year.
Headteacher Stephanie Mander, who wrote the letter, explained that this is because of the state school's 'respect for diversity' and its aim to 'create a more inclusive atmosphere'.
She said that respect for diverse religious beliefs represented within the school was the reason behind the decision.
'By not holding specific religious celebrations, we aim to create a more inclusive atmosphere that honours and respects the beliefs of all our children and their families', she said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Spain's economy is the envy of Europe, but the plight of its strawberry pickers tells another story
I used to enjoy being able to buy strawberries in the supermarket in winter. But that was before I saw first-hand where most of the UK's imported berries come from. The working conditions of migrant farm workers in southern Spain were something I never thought I would see in a European country. While others flounder, the Spanish economy is booming, in large part thanks to unusually high migration levels – but too many of the people propping it up are being treated disgracefully. At the end of Huelva's berry-growing season in April, I sat having lunch at a roadside restaurant in town, as an endless stream of trailers with fruit logos on the side thundered past. At peak times, 2,000 of these lorries leave Huelva every day, laden with berries destined for the European market. More than 60% of the strawberries British people eat in winter were grown in the polytunnels in Huelva. The 11,000-hectare (27,000-acre) sprawl there is surrounded by roughly 40 chabolas, makeshift slums housing thousands of migrant workers. According to Diego Cañamero, co-founder of Soc-Sat, the Andalusian Workers' Union, 40% of Huelva's seasonal work force of 100,000 are undocumented. Without paperwork, the workers cannot rent accommodation, and so thousands are forced to live in shacks made of scraps scavenged from waste dumps, with no running water or electricity. Cañamero put me in touch with a local union official, who took me around the enormous sprawl of polytunnels and surrounding chabolas. He asked not to be named – he told me he had been attacked because of his organising efforts. Spain's berry exports are worth upwards of £1.5bn a year, so there are powerful forces at work here. Indeed, it didn't take long before our car was being followed. At some farms, often with no company name displayed, we were welcomed by workers, but some were hostile, unwilling to speak to a journalist for fear of losing their jobs. In 2019, the union received more than 1,000 complaints related to working conditions in Huelva. Six years on, things have not improved. There are farms that treat their workers fairly and pay a decent wage, but most don't, my union guide said. Most berry pickers are from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, but there are also South Americans and eastern Europeans. Research conducted by Ethical Consumer in 2023 found that workers are often paid less than the Spanish minimum daily wage of about £45, and are regularly required to work overtime without pay. Two Moroccan women took me into their dwelling, a shipping container in a forest clearing between broken-down cars and washing lines. They spoke no Spanish or English, but when one pointed to a stinking hole in the floor and said 'kaka', the mosquitoes and flies spoke for themselves. In Huelva, the rightwing myth of migrants stealing jobs is dispelled; few if any Spaniards would work under these slavery-like conditions. This has not stopped Spain's far-right party Vox proposing a new Trump-inspired plan for mass deportations. Inside the vast expanse of polytunnels, pesticides keep insects at bay. I witnessed workers wearing no protective clothing or masks while spraying the plants with these chemicals. The heat was fierce, but many farm bosses don't allow workers to bring in bottled water, claiming it could ruin the crops. Some labourers are electronically monitored, and are deducted pay for low efficiency and toilet breaks, according to the 2024 documentary The Invisibles: Modern Slavery in Europe. I also met women on two-hour walks from their slums to the nearest shop, wary of hitchhiking because of several incidents of sexual harassment. Spain has an estimated 9.3 million foreign-born people, almost 20% of the population. And according to economists at JP Morgan, the country's unusually pro-migration stance has been critical to its low unemployment levels and soaring GDP, as migrant workers fill the gaps left by an ageing Spanish population – in particular, in the critical industries of tourism and agriculture. Indeed, it is doing so well that The Economist named it the best in the world in 2024. But who is looking out for the workers who are suffering so that their host country can thrive, and the rest of Europe can eat summer fruits in the depths of winter? Roughly 600,000 of Spain's migrant workers are undocumented – although Pedro Sánchez's government has pledged to naturalise 300,000 of them every year, which could be a step in the right direction to improve their working conditions. It will need a concerted effort to alleviate the miserable situation many workers are trapped in. The trade union has proposed much stronger regulation of agricultural employment, with a requirement for companies employing foreign workers to ensure they have a basic level of housing and a living wage. So far, Cañamero told me, they have been met with total silence. The Spanish labour ministry says it carried out more than 4,000 inspections in Huelva in 2022, issuing €1.6m worth of fines. Unfortunately, farm bosses are often alerted to these inspections beforehand. Soc-Sat has proposed to the ministry of labour that they carry them out unannounced, but to no avail. Nothing ever seems to change there, my union guide told me, even after 20 years of journalists documenting the strawberry-pickers' undignified conditions. While Spain celebrates its widely envied GDP growth and the plaudits of the economic establishment, and Europe's supermarkets count the profits from year-round grocery sales, the people doing the punishing work that supports it are suffering appalling working conditions and living in slums. These imported strawberries should leave a bitter taste in all our mouths. Tone Sutterud is a freelance human rights and environment journalist and translator
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Spain's economy is the envy of Europe, but the plight of its strawberry pickers tells another story
I used to enjoy being able to buy strawberries in the supermarket in winter. But that was before I saw first-hand where most of the UK's imported berries come from. The working conditions of migrant farm workers in southern Spain were something I never thought I would see in a European country. While others flounder, the Spanish economy is booming, in large part thanks to unusually high migration levels – but too many of the people propping it up are being treated disgracefully. At the end of Huelva's berry-growing season in April, I sat having lunch at a roadside restaurant in town, as an endless stream of trailers with fruit logos on the side thundered past. At peak times, 2,000 of these lorries leave Huelva every day, laden with berries destined for the European market. More than 60% of the strawberries British people eat in winter were grown in the polytunnels in Huelva. The 11,000-hectare (27,000-acre) sprawl there is surrounded by roughly 40 chabolas, makeshift slums housing thousands of migrant workers. According to Diego Cañamero, co-founder of Soc-Sat, the Andalusian Workers' Union, 40% of Huelva's seasonal work force of 100,000 are undocumented. Without paperwork, the workers cannot rent accommodation, and so thousands are forced to live in shacks made of scraps scavenged from waste dumps, with no running water or electricity. Cañamero put me in touch with a local union official, who took me around the enormous sprawl of polytunnels and surrounding chabolas. He asked not to be named – he told me he had been attacked because of his organising efforts. Spain's berry exports are worth upwards of £1.5bn a year, so there are powerful forces at work here. Indeed, it didn't take long before our car was being followed. At some farms, often with no company name displayed, we were welcomed by workers, but some were hostile, unwilling to speak to a journalist for fear of losing their jobs. In 2019, the union received more than 1,000 complaints related to working conditions in Huelva. Six years on, things have not improved. There are farms that treat their workers fairly and pay a decent wage, but most don't, my union guide said. Most berry pickers are from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, but there are also South Americans and eastern Europeans. Research conducted by Ethical Consumer in 2023 found that workers are often paid less than the Spanish minimum daily wage of about £45, and are regularly required to work overtime without pay. Two Moroccan women took me into their dwelling, a shipping container in a forest clearing between broken-down cars and washing lines. They spoke no Spanish or English, but when one pointed to a stinking hole in the floor and said 'kaka', the mosquitoes and flies spoke for themselves. In Huelva, the rightwing myth of migrants stealing jobs is dispelled; few if any Spaniards would work under these slavery-like conditions. This has not stopped Spain's far-right party Vox proposing a new Trump-inspired plan for mass deportations. Inside the vast expanse of polytunnels, pesticides keep insects at bay. I witnessed workers wearing no protective clothing or masks while spraying the plants with these chemicals. The heat was fierce, but many farm bosses don't allow workers to bring in bottled water, claiming it could ruin the crops. Some labourers are electronically monitored, and are deducted pay for low efficiency and toilet breaks, according to the 2024 documentary The Invisibles: Modern Slavery in Europe. I also met women on two-hour walks from their slums to the nearest shop, wary of hitchhiking because of several incidents of sexual harassment. Spain has an estimated 9.3 million foreign-born people, almost 20% of the population. And according to economists at JP Morgan, the country's unusually pro-migration stance has been critical to its low unemployment levels and soaring GDP, as migrant workers fill the gaps left by an ageing Spanish population – in particular, in the critical industries of tourism and agriculture. Indeed, it is doing so well that The Economist named it the best in the world in 2024. But who is looking out for the workers who are suffering so that their host country can thrive, and the rest of Europe can eat summer fruits in the depths of winter? Roughly 600,000 of Spain's migrant workers are undocumented – although Pedro Sánchez's government has pledged to naturalise 300,000 of them every year, which could be a step in the right direction to improve their working conditions. It will need a concerted effort to alleviate the miserable situation many workers are trapped in. The trade union has proposed much stronger regulation of agricultural employment, with a requirement for companies employing foreign workers to ensure they have a basic level of housing and a living wage. So far, Cañamero told me, they have been met with total silence. The Spanish labour ministry says it carried out more than 4,000 inspections in Huelva in 2022, issuing €1.6m worth of fines. Unfortunately, farm bosses are often alerted to these inspections beforehand. Soc-Sat has proposed to the ministry of labour that they carry them out unannounced, but to no avail. Nothing ever seems to change there, my union guide told me, even after 20 years of journalists documenting the strawberry-pickers' undignified conditions. While Spain celebrates its widely envied GDP growth and the plaudits of the economic establishment, and Europe's supermarkets count the profits from year-round grocery sales, the people doing the punishing work that supports it are suffering appalling working conditions and living in slums. These imported strawberries should leave a bitter taste in all our mouths. Tone Sutterud is a freelance human rights and environment journalist and translator
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Miriam González Durántez weighs up move to lead new Spanish liberal party
For almost 30 years, she let her husband, the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, soak up the political limelight, but 10 years after he quit politics to join Facebook, Miriam González Durántez is weighing up a move to enter the political fray herself. The lawyer and former EU foreign adviser is considering heading a new liberal party in her native Spain after a perceived gap opened up after the collapse of the centre-liberal party Ciudadanos (Citizens) and amid ongoing crises in the current socialist government headed by Pedro Sánchez. It is understood she has had talks with the Renew grouping of liberal parties in Europe earlier this summer with a view to launching a party that aims to re-energise the political centre, not just in Spain but also in the EU. A lawyer by profession, with a formidable reputation, González Durántez is already laying the foundations for a potential move into the public arena. In 2023, she founded España Mejor, Better Spain, a non-profit political organisation which aims to encourage Spanish civil society to participate in the development of public policy. Among the goals of Better Spain, which some might read as the bones of a manifesto, are a new water policy, a 'realistic' housing policy', more and better jobs, tax proposals for young people, a tax policy 'for everyone to grow', and the elimination of special legal privileges for 250,000 people in Spain including public officials. At a public meeting of Better Spain in Cádiz on Friday, she said: 'If civil society proves incapable of cleaning up politics I'll consider establishing a political party,' the local La Voz de Cádiz reported. Clegg was a prominent politician in the UK, serving as leader of the Liberal Democrats between 2007 and 2015 and becoming deputy prime minister to Conservative David Cameron between 2010 and 2015, as part of the first full coalition government in Britain since 1945. During his tenure as leader, he rejected the 'tribalism of left and right' and instead positioned the party in the 'radical centre' of middle-income progressive voters. He supported reduced taxes, electoral reform, cuts and an increased focus on environmental issues. He stepped down as leader of the party after it was nearly wiped out in 2015 election, with some blaming the defeat on his decision to get into bed with the Conservatives in the first place, breaking a key election promise over university fees in the process. Clegg quit politics in the UK and took up a new role in 2018 in California as the head of global affairs and communications at Facebook. At the same time González Durántez pursued a number of interests including a mentoring project, Inspiring Girls International, and Altius Advisory, a consultancy she founded aimed at bettering business in Africa. Before that she spent years in Brussels and London advising on diversity, liberal reform, and international trade policy. They returned to the UK from California after Clegg left Meta in January and she now spends weekdays in Spain and weekends when she can in London, according to a recent interview. Her lengthy career included three stints as a member of cabinet in the EU's external relations commission, including one as a senior trade adviser to Chris Patten, the former British commissioner for external relations. She also spent two years working as a negotiator at the World Trade Organization. Her father, José Antonio González Caviedes, was mayor of Olmedo and served as a senator for the conservative People's party (PP) from 1989 until he died in 1996. González Durántez was not available for comment, but when asked if she was considering setting up her own party, a spokesperson for Better Spain said the lawyer had been working for the past two years to mobilise civil society and on effort to 'clean up Spanish politics' and 'end the pendulum of corruption and counteract polarisation'. The spokesperson added: 'She has publicly stated on numerous occasions that if Spanish political parties continue to ignore civil society, she would consider other options including political ones. For the time being she continues working on those objectives within España Mejor. 'As part of her work as the founder of España Mejor, she has held meetings with all sorts of organisations, public institutions, businesses and citizens across Spain, as well as multiple political parties, within Spain and Europe.' Founding a new party and bringing it to a position of political heft is laden with risk in Spain, as it is in any country. Spanish politics remains doggedly bipartisan, with the socialist and conservative parties rarely achieving an overall majority. While the two-party system has been loosened from both left (Podemos) and right (Vox) the attempt by Ciudadanos, led by Albert Rivera, a young lawyer, to break the deadlock fizzled out to the point that the party didn't even contest the 2023 general election. Pablo Simón, a political scientist at the Carlos III university in Madrid, predicted an uphill struggle for González if she throws her hat into the ring. 'This proposal for a new centrist party seems to come from above, not from the grassroots,' he said. 'I think it's a bad moment to launch such a party. For one thing, voters who are fed up with the government are moving the right and the far right and prefer pre-existing parties to new ones. It would make more sense to wait for the European elections when there is a better chance of gaining representation. 'Miriam González is largely unknown in Spain. When you launch a party it's best to have a someone well-known to front it. Perhaps González would make a better deputy than leader.' He added that liberal parties had had little success in newer democracies such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. 'This is because, being new democracies, the politics are polarised between left and right.' It may be some time before Miriam González Durántez decides whether to follow her husband's footsteps into formal politics, but if she does she will join an illustrious list of power couples who have graced the world stage. 1. Bill Clinton and Hillary ClintonAlthough she was unsuccessful in her attempt to follow Bill into the White House, Hillary Clinton and her husband were at one time the most powerful couple in modern American politics. A lawyer, politician and diplomat, Hillary achieved high office in her own right as two-time senator for New York and US secretary of state. The pair continue to wield influence with the Clinton Foundation. 2. Nelson Mandela and Winnie MandelaBefore their divorce and her marginalisation after his release from prison in 1990, the couple were considered the mother and father of the nation of South Africa. Winnie Mandela became an MP and a minister and during the fight against apartheid she was a potent symbol of the struggle, but her reputation was seriously damaged several times by allegations of murder and corruption. She was convicted of kidnapping, assault, theft and fraud. As one of the most visible faces of the resistance, she was regularly detained and harassed by the police and considered so powerful she was even prohibited from speaking to the media. 3. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Néstor KirchnerCristina Fernández de Kirchner became the first woman to be elected president of Argentina in 2007, a role she held until 2015. Succeeding her husband Néstor, the charismatic but divisive figure was permanently banned from public office in June over a corruption conviction.
