MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government on Friday criticized a ban enacted in a southeastern town that prohibits religious gatherings in public sports centers, a measure that will mainly affect members of the town’s Muslim community who in recent years have used the spaces to celebrate religious holidays.
The ban — approved last week by the conservative local government of Jumilla, a town of 27,000 — has since become a flashpoint. Its critics, including Spain’s left-wing national government, have condemned the measure as discriminatory while some on the right are celebrating it as a means to uphold the nation’s Christian culture.
Spain’s Migration Minister Elma Saiz on Friday called the ban “shameful,” and urged local leaders to “take a step back” and apologize to local residents. The head of a prominent Islamic association in the country denounced the measure, saying it amounted to “institutionalized Islamophobia.”
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.”
The ban is the latest controversy involving Spain’s hot-button issues of immigration and multi-culturalism. It follows clashes last month in the southern Murcia region between far-right groups and local residents and migrants. They erupted after an elderly resident in the town of Torre-Pacheco was be …