Spain: Controversy Over Town's Banning of Public Prayer at Sports Facility

Hat tip Gates of Vienna

Jumilla, Spain

There is controversy brewing in Spain over the decision of a local city council in the southern town of Jumilla (Murcia) banning the use of a public sports facility for non-sporting uses. This is meant to stop the local Muslim community from using the space to hold public prayers, as reported in Brussels Signal (in English).  

Though his own party at the local level abstained in the voting, Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, a strong opponent of mass Muslim migration into Spain, spoke out in support of the vote. Meanwhile, the liberal central government in Madrid has reportedly launched an investigation into whether Jumilla is engaging in some sort of "hate crime".

While it's tricky business to apply American standards to foreign laws and regulations, it seems reasonable to me that a community has the right to govern how its public facilities are used. You just can't allow large crowds of people to take over public spaces for events without the permission of the locality.  It may seem jingoistic to talk about protecting oneself from "alien practices and cultures", but Spain-and the rest of Western Europe- is, in my view, in real danger of having its native culture wiped out, to say nothing about its freedoms. 

The below article from El Debate with Abascal's remarks is translated by Fousesquawk.

Caption: Abascal during an appearance in an archive image

Abascal on Jumilla: "Public spaces need to be protected from practices alien to our culture."

The leader of Vox posts a long reflection on the controversy that has arisen over the banning of non-sporting acts at the sports center in the Murcia locality. 

El Debate

Madrid, August 8, 2025, 11:05. Updated August 8, 2025 11:08

The campaign orchestrated by the left to manipulate the motion approved by the Jumilla City Council (Murcia) to ban the holding of non-sporting events at the sports center of the town in Murcia has forced the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, whose party, incidentally, abstained in the amendment proposed in Jumilla by the PP (Partida Popular-People's Party) ) and which prevailed.

For Santiago Abascal, "public spaces need to be protected from practices alien to our culture and our way of life. Spaniards need to be protected from those who seek to impose a totalitarian ideology, sometimes disguised as religion".

The leader of Vox maintains that the Jumilla case is not about a debate on religious freedom as claimed by those accomplices of the invasion or the cowards (in reference to the Partida Popular). "We are facing the real threat of an extremist ideology, such as Islamism, which brings with it its own laws and which are incompatible with our culture, with our way of life, with the rights of women and the secularism of the state," he maintains.

Abascal believes that "every person who resides in Spain has the perfect right to profess his/her religion as long as they expressly renounce imposing it or defending practices incompatible with our laws, like the promotion of holy war, practices that denigrate women, female genital mutilation, persecution of homosexuals, child marriage, or any other practice incompatible with our freedoms and fundamental rights."

Finally, Abascal stressed that Vox wants Spain to "continue being Spain," and that its streets don't seem like those "like a country where the woman is an inferior being and homosexuals are hanged......" "For us, it is very important to maintain our identity and our customs, and every person who comes to Spain must do so with the firm intention of adapting themselves to our culture and our customs while expressly renouncing the imposition of ideologies and totalitarian laws," he stated.