MADRID (Guardian) -- Spain’s central government has ordered officials in a Spanish town to scrap a ban on religious gatherings in public sports centers, describing it as a “discriminatory” measure that breaches the right to religious freedom as it will mainly impact Muslims.
Last week, it emerged that the conservative-led council in Jumilla, a town of about 27,000 residents in the region of Murcia, had backed the ban. As its Muslim residents had for years used the facilities to come together to mark Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, the motion was widely seen as targeting the town’s estimated 1,500 Muslims.
The proposal was initially put forward by the far-right Vox party, which called for an outright ban on public celebrations such as Eid al-Adha.
Vox’s hardline motion was watered down and subsequently backed by the People’s party (PP), which removed the explicit reference to Eid al-Adha and instead stipulated that municipal sports facilities could no longer be used for “cultural, social or religious activities foreign to the city council”. Vox had demanded the measure in exchange for backing the budget put forward by the town’s PP mayor.
As the far right celebrated what it described as the “first measure” to ban Islamic festivals in Spain’s public spaces, the outcry was swift. The head of a prominent Muslim association in Spain described the ban as “institutionalized Islamophobia”, while the country’s migration minister called it “shameful”.
In Jumilla, the PP defended the motion, arguing that it did not single out any religion or belief and highlighted that 72 nationalities coexisted in the town without any issue. The local mayor, Seve González, told El País the council was aiming to “promote cultural campaigns” that defended “our identity” and protected the “values and religious expressions of our country”.
Spain’s migration minister, Elma Saiz, said those who paid the price would be citizens who had spent decades peacefully living in Jumilla and had helped to sustain a local economy centered on vineyards and crops such as olives and almonds.
The measure came weeks after unrest gripped Torre-Pacheco, about 60 miles (100km) from Jumilla, with baton-wielding groups taking to the streets to “hunt” people with foreign origins after an assault on an older person.
In the lead-up to the unrest, after the pensioner told local media he believed his attacker had been of north African origin, racist messaging on social media rocketed by 1,500%, according to tracking by the central government.