Spanish Town Ordered to Drop Religious Gatherings Ban Targeting Muslims

The Spanish government ordered a conservative-led town in the southeast of the country to drop a ban on religious gatherings at public sports facilities, saying the law violated the constitution and is discriminatory toward the local Muslim community, Euronews reported. 

The ban targets Muslims celebrating religious events and was passed last week by the conservative local government of Jumilla, a town of 27,000 people, in the southeast region of Murcia. 

According to the ban, municipal sports facilities cannot be used for “cultural, social or religious activities foreign to the City Council,” effectively targeting the town’s Muslim community of 3,000, which has been using those spaces to celebrate religious holidays like Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha for years. 

The far-right Vox party proposed the ban, which was subsequently amended and approved by the center-right Popular Party (PP), also the party of the mayor of Jumilla.  

Spain’s socialist government condemned the ban, which Migration Minister Elma Saiz called “shameful,” urging Jumilla’s leaders to step back and apologize to locals.  

Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Victor Torres wrote on X Monday that the Spanish government officially ordered Jumilla to lift the ban, emphasizing that PP and Vox cannot pick and choose who can have freedom of worship, which is a “constitutional right.” 

Secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain, Mohamed El Ghaidouni, opposed the ban and said the local government’s justification for it consisted of “institutionalized Islamophobia.” 

Conservative figures in Jumilla, however, stood by it, with Mayor Seve González telling El País newspaper that the ban does not target any specific group and that her government wants to “promote cultural campaigns that defend our identity.” 

Vox’s representatives in the Murcia region embraced the ban in explicitly anti-Muslim terms, according to the New York Times, writing on X that Spain is a country with Christian roots and adding that “Spain is not Al Andalus,” which was the historic name of the country when it was under Muslim rule.  

The ban is the most recent controversy related to immigration and multiculturalism in Spain.  

Far-right protesters and immigrants last month clashed for days in the town of Torre-Pacheco in Murcia after an elderly resident was beaten by perpetrators believed to be of Moroccan descent, an event that led far-right groups to seek retribution against the region’s large immigrant population.