Latest news with #southeasternSpain
Al Jazeera
08-08-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘Islamophobic': Spanish town's ban on religious gatherings sparks criticism
A ban imposed by a southeastern Spanish town on religious gatherings in public sports centres, which will mainly affect members of the local Muslim community, has sparked criticism from the left-wing government and a United Nations official. Spain's Migration Minister Elma Saiz said on Friday that the ban, approved by the conservative local government of Jumilla last week, was 'shameful', urging local leaders to 'take a step back' and apologise to residents. The ban, approved by the mayor's centre-right Popular Party, would be enacted in sports centres used by local Muslims in recent years to celebrate religious holidays like Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. It was originally proposed by the far-right Vox party, with amendments passed before approval. Earlier this week, Vox's branch in the Murcia region celebrated the measure, saying on X that 'Spain is and always will be a land of Christian roots!' The town's mayor, Seve Gonzalez, told Spain's El Pais newspaper that the measure did not single out any one group and that her government wanted to 'promote cultural campaigns that defend our identity'. But Mohamed El Ghaidouni, secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain, said it amounted to 'institutionalised Islamophobia', taking issue with the local government's assertion that the Muslim festivals celebrated in the centres were 'foreign to the town's identity'. The ban, he said, 'clashes with the institutions of the Spanish state' that protect religious freedom. Saiz told Spain's Antena 3 broadcaster that policies like the ban in Jumilla harm 'citizens who have been living for decades in our towns, in our cities, in our country, contributing and perfectly integrated without any problems of coexistence'. Separately, Miguel Moratinos, the UN special envoy to combat Islamophobia, said he was 'shocked' by the City Council of Jumilla's decision and expressed 'deep concern about the rise in xenophobic rhetoric and Islamophobic sentiments in some regions in Spain'. I am shocked by the decision of the City Council of Jumilla to ban religious rituals and/or celebrations in municipal facilities in the municipality of Jumilla, region of Murcia, Spain. 🔗 Full Statement ⬇️ — Miguel Ángel Moratinos (@MiguelMoratinos) August 8, 2025 'The decision undermines the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion' as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he said in a statement on Friday. 'Policies that single out or disproportionately affect one community pose a threat to social cohesion and erode the principle of living together in peace,' he added. Far-right clashes with locals For centuries, Spain was ruled by Muslims, whose influence is present both in the Spanish language and in many of the country's most celebrated landmarks, including Granada's famed Moorish Alhambra Palace. Islamic rule ended in 1492 when the last Arab kingdom in Spain fell to the Catholics. The ban stipulates that municipal sports facilities can only be used for athletic activities or events organised by local authorities. Under no circumstance, it said, can the centre be used for 'cultural, social or religious activities foreign to the City Council'. Its introduction follows clashes between far-right groups and residents and migrants that erupted last month in the southern Murcia region after an elderly resident in the town of Torre-Pacheco was beaten up by assailants believed to be of Moroccan origin. Right-wing governments elsewhere in Europe have passed measures similar to the ban in Jumilla, striking at the heart of ongoing debates across the continent about nationalism and religious and cultural pluralism. Last year in Monfalcone, a large industrial port city in northeastern Italy with a significant Bangladeshi immigrant population, far-right mayor Anna Maria Cisint banned prayers in a cultural centre. The move led to protests involving some 8,000 people, and the city's Muslim community is appealing it in a regional court.
Reuters
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Spain arrests 10 after far-right groups and migrants clash
TORRE PACHECO, Spain, July 14 (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested 10 people after three nights of clashes between far-right groups and North African migrants in a town in southeastern Spain, the government said on Monday. In one of Spain's worst such flare-ups of recent times, several dozen youths, some hooded, hurled glass bottles and other objects at riot police in Torre Pacheco on Sunday night, Reuters journalists saw. Police fired rubber bullets to quell the unrest. The trouble stemmed from an attack last week on a man in his late 60s that left him injured and recovering at home. An Interior Ministry spokesperson told Reuters late on Monday that the suspected main perpetrator in last week's attack was arrested in the northern Basque Country. Authorities had previously said they had detained two foreigners suspected of involvement in the assault. The victim told LaSexta broadcaster last week that he had been on a walk in a cemetery garden when two men, speaking a language he did not understand, ran towards him, one in an agitated state. "He threw me to the ground and hit me. It all happened very quickly. I think they hit me and then left," said the man, whom LaSexta and other media identified as Domingo Tomas. The other seven detainees - six Spaniards and one person of North African origin - were arrested for assault, public disorder, hate crimes or damage to property, the Interior Ministry said. Migrants, many of them second-generation, make up about a third of Torre Pacheco's population of about 40,000. The area around the town also hosts large numbers of migrants who work as day labourers in agriculture, one of the pillars of the economy in the Murcia region. "I ask the migrant community not to leave their homes and not to confront rioters, because confrontation achieves nothing and ultimately makes us all afraid," local mayor Pedro Angel Roca told national broadcaster TVE. Speaking to radio station Cadena Ser, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska attributed the violence to anti-immigration rhetoric from far-right groups and political parties such as Vox, which he said unjustifiably links immigration to crime. The violence in Torre Pacheco was organised and fomented by calls on social media, the minister added. Vox leader Santiago Abascal denied any responsibility for the incidents and said the government's migration policies were to blame. Spain has been open to migration and its economic benefits, even as other European governments have tightened borders. But debate has reignited, led by Vox, as plans to relocate unaccompanied underage migrants from the Canary Islands to the rest of Spain have been confirmed in recent weeks. "Spain is not a country that hunts down immigrants, and if we have to take to the streets, it is to defend the rights of thousands of people who are completely trapped and distressed by this hunt for immigrants," Migration Minister Elma Saiz told El Pais newspaper. Abdelali, a North African migrant who lives in Torre Pacheco and declined to give his surname, said he was afraid of riding his scooter due to rioters throwing bottles. "We want peace. That's what we want, we don't want anything else," he told Reuters on Sunday. In 2000, violent anti-immigration protests broke out in the Almeria town of El Ejido in southern Spain after three Spanish citizens were killed by Moroccan migrants.
