Spain: a town prohibits Muslim festivals in public places

In Jumilla, a small town in southeast Spain, Muslims will no longer be able to celebrate Eid in civic centers or municipal gymnasiums. This unprecedented decision, carried by the People’s Party (Conservative right) with the abstention of the far right Vox, prohibits the use of public facilities for any activity “foreign to our identity”, unless it is organized by the municipality. Vox welcomed this measure on social networks, claiming that “Spain is and will remain a Christian land”. A rhetoric that alarms Muslim representatives: Mounir Benjelloun Andaloussi Azhari, president of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Organizations, denounces an “Islamophobic and discriminatory” decision. “For the first time in 30 years, I feel fear,” he said El País.

The City of Jumilla has 27,000 inhabitants, including almost 8 % from majorly Muslim countries. For many, this decision tramples article 16 of the Spanish Constitution, which guarantees freedom of worship. Voices rise, on the left, to denounce a serious attack on social cohesion. The former socialist mayor, Juana Guardiola, wonders: “What identity do they defend? Have they forgotten the centuries of Muslim heritage here?” Ironically, Jumilla was for centuries an Arab city before falling under Christian control in the 13th century.

This assumed identity shift, carried by alliances between traditional right and extreme right, worried far beyond Jumilla. It testifies to a European climate increasingly hostile to Muslim minorities, where the principles of secularism and freedom of worship are instrumentalized to better exclude.