Spain debates plan to ban Islamic veils in public spaces, but ruling party opposes

Spain debates plan to ban burqas in public spaces

MADRID — Spain’s Parliament will debate a proposal Tuesday to ban women from wearing Islamic veils in public, but the ruling Socialist Party vowed to vote against the measure that could lead to a law outlawing burqas and niqabs.

The Spanish proposal follows debates in several other European countries on possibly banning face veils that show only a woman’s eyes, as nations like France and Belgium struggle to balance their national identities with growing Muslim populations.

In Spain, the leading opposition Popular Party put forward the proposal to support women’s rights and prevent Muslim women from being forced by husbands to wear the veil.

But analysts see it as an opposition ploy to build strength amid economic turmoil and dismal growth prospects, particularly since no one has been able to cite any place in Spain where women routinely wear the veil.

That has not stopped a handful of Spanish towns and cities from banning burqas and niqabs in municipal buildings, including in the second-largest city of Barcelona in June. The nation of 47 million has about 1 million Muslims, but most arrived in recent decades from northwest Africa where the burqa is not common.

“This has been used politically in a search for electoral support,” said Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Commission of Spain. He said he last saw a woman wearing a burqa in Spain 10 years ago on Marbella island, but she could have been a tourist. The only woman he knew who regularly wore one lived in the southern city of Cordoba and died about a decade ago.

The issue nevertheless remains an emotional touchstone, and the nonbinding resolution being voted on Tuesday was already passed by the Spanish Senate in June with little fanfare.

At the time, Justice Minister Francisco Caamano said that garments were “hardly compatible with human dignity.”

But the government opposes legislating a ban, as that could force women who wear them to make a difficult choice: Go out in public and break the law, or stay home all the time.

“We want to avoid putting women who live in this kind of situation in a dual jail,” said Eduardo Madina, secretary general for the ruling Socialist Party in the lower house of parliament.

The Popular Party’s Jose Luis Ayllon has countered with an appeal for votes in the name of “the dignity and equality of all of the women in Spain,” saying the use of the veils “oversteps religious symbolism.”

Florentino Portero, a history professor at Spain’s National Open University, said the nation isn’t ready for a debate already in high gear in nations like France and Belgium because Spain hasn’t experienced the same scale of Muslim immigration that has shaken up society in those nations.

The French lower house of parliament — seeking to define and protect French values — approved a ban last week on wearing burqa-style Islamic veils, a move that angered many in the country’s large Muslim community. The French Senate is expected to pass the legislation in September, after which it will be scrutinized by the country’s constitutional watchdog.

Belgium’s lower house approved a ban on face-covering veils, but it still needs ratification in the upper chamber. And the Netherlands four years ago debated banning burqas and may yet outlaw attire considered as demeaning to women, while Switzerland last year banned minarets from where Muslim are called to prayer.

Portero suggested the Popular Party, in bringing up the issue, was looking to prevent Muslim women from eventually being forced to wear burqas in Spain.

But other analysts said it was a political move by the right-of-center party aimed at gaining support among Spaniards who are hurting economically and blame immigrants for costly social welfare programs and high taxes.

“The Popular Party is saying, “Look, we’re not turning away from the problems of multiculturalism or immigration,” said Ramon Cotarelo, a political science professor at Madrid’s Complutense University.

But he said that, while requiring people to show their faces in public buildings is understandable for security reasons, a total ban raises troubling civil liberties issues.

“People dress the way they like,” Cotarelo said. “This is an attack on private lives and civilian freedom.”

The proposal is careful not to include all head-covering veils, as traditional Spanish dress also includes lace head garments called a mantilla typically worn during church services in the south.

Associated Press Writers Ciaran Giles and Jorge Sainz contributed from Madrid.