Spanish town told to scrap ban affecting celebration of Islamic festivals

Spain's central government has ordered officials in a town in Murcia to scrap a ban on religious gatherings in public sports centres, describing it as a "discriminatory" measure that breaches the right to religious freedom as it will mainly affect Muslims.

- Ashifa Kassam

"There can be no half-measures when it comes to intolerance," Ángel Víctor Torres, the minister for territorial policy, wrote on social media on Monday. Rightwing opposition parties, he added, "cannot decide who has freedom of worship and who does not".

Last week, it emerged the conservative-led council in Jumilla, a town of about 27,000 people, 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 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 PP's budget.