PALMA City Council in Mallorca has banned the wearing of the burqa and niqab in public buildings and spaces as well as on buses.
It’s the latest Spanish municipality to impose restrictions this week following similar decisions in Malaga province at Alhaurin el Grande and Rincon de la Victoria.
Palma’s approval for the ban followed a proposal by the far-right Vox party, with the conservative Partido Popular(PP) giving it its support.
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Other Mallorcan municipalities have already approved a similar ban.
Vox councillor Jero Mayans said the measure was needed because city districts are becoming ‘more unrecognisable every day’.
Mayans claimed that the neighbourhoods are becoming ‘hostile places where another language is spoken’ with ‘alternative rules’ followed and where insecurity ‘runs rampant’.
He suggested that ‘completely incompatible cultures’ have been installed that ‘expel Spaniards from their homes’ which results in ‘no trace of Spain’.
Mercedes Celeste of the PP and municipal government spokesperson said her party backed the measure because a burqa does ‘nothing more than hide and cover’ the identity of many women so that ‘no kind of human form’ can be seen.
“This totally annuls women because it is a form of total control with its purpose to denigrate the person,” Celeste added.
The spokesperson for the far-left Podemos party, Lucia Muñoz, slammed the PP and Vox.
“They are weaponising women’s rights to justify racist measures and to stigmatise communities,” said Muñoz.
“If women are forced to wear these garments it is oppression, but if an administration forces them to take them off, that is also oppression.”
The same Palma plenary meeting also voted down proposals for public schools to offer halal meals.
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