Vox has presented in the Balearic Parliament a bill to ban the use of the burqa and the niqab in all public spaces in the Balearic Islands. This is an initiative that requires amendments to the Penal Code and, therefore, must also be debated in the Congress of Deputies. The registration of the regulation comes after the controversy generated months ago in Ibiza by the poster campaign on the subject, still under investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Vox spokeswoman, Manuela Cañadas, has defended that the proposal is “clear, brave and necessary” and that it “especially protects vulnerable girls and women”, as she explained in the press conference prior to the plenary session. The formation argues that the ban responds to a question of “dignity, security and coexistence”.
Details of the regulatory initiative
The legislative text proposes that forcing, coercing or intimidating a woman -especially if she is a minor or vulnerable- to wear a burqa or niqab can lead to prison sentences of up to four years, in addition to fines of up to 30,000 euros. All this is accompanied by expulsions from Spanish territory for repeat offenders, without the possibility of replacing the penalties with fines.
Vox stresses that the imposition of these garments constitutes an act “contrary to public order and human dignity”, and recalls that countries such as France, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands or Switzerland have already legislated in this sense, with the endorsement of the European Court of Human Rights.
The law is presented after the Parliament rejected last week a similar non-legislative proposal. The PP, which abstained, has insisted today that it proposed to focus the regulation only on the burqa and the niqab, without mentioning the Islamic veil. Its spokesman, Sebastià Sagreras, has affirmed that “the Govern is before the freedom of women and before equality and rejects the garments that attempt against this and, the burqa, evidently, invisibilizes women and goes against dignity and equality”.
Spotlight returns to Ibiza after poster controversy
The presentation of the law reactivates the debate in Ibiza, where Vox installed in September a poster next to the bus station of Sant Antoni with the comparative image of two women -one with burqa and one without- accompanied by the slogan “What Spain do you want?”. That advertisement provoked a wave of criticism, vandalism and a complaint transferred by the Government Delegation to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to determine whether it could constitute a hate crime.
The Ibizan deputy of Vox, Patricia de las Heras, then called the damage to the poster “a sign of intolerance of the left” and said that the party does not rule out replacing it. The formation defended then that “the burqa and the niqab do not represent faith, they represent submission”, a message that coincides with the tone of the legislative text now registered in the Parliament.
The controversy surrounding the campaign also reached educational centers, where unions such as UOB Ensenyament denounced that the posters “discriminated and singled out groups because of their religion”, while asking the Government to remove them.
