The Spanish government has been accused of violating basic religious rights after a group of peaceful protesters were fined for praying the rosary outside a church near the headquarters of the governing Socialist Party.
Spain’s Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience is petitioning for the UN to intervene, saying the government’s actions are part of a trend against public religious practice “which may soon reach levels of repression typical of dictatorial regimes.”.
Protests outside Socialist Party headquarters started late last year as the government planned to pardon Catalan separatists. The planned amnesty included not only the unrepentant leaders of the 2017 illegal referendum on the region’s independence but also perpetrators of a wide swath of crimes not directly related to the question of independence.
Alongside the protests, a group gathered every evening to pray the rosary at the doors of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church on Ferraz Street, a few doors down from Socialist Party headquarters.
In November, an elderly woman was arrested by the National Police while praying the rosary outside the headquarters. Others have received subpoenas, including the organizer who led the rosary and a 17-year-old. Their subpoenas are for disobedience and resistance to authority. They received fines amounting to 3,600 euros and 1,800 euros respectively.
“These events are part of a series of prohibitions and attacks by the Government against citizens who profess religious beliefs. It is necessary for these facts to be brought to the attention of the international community to ask for protection and to stop a trend which may soon reach levels of repression typical of dictatorial regimes like those in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela,” the petition to the UN states.
“Religious freedom protects that believers can pray when and where they want. All over Europe, they are trying to bring religion into the strictly private sphere and believers are not allowed to manifest themselves as such,” Maria Garcia, president of the Observatory, explained.
The Observatory for Religious Freedom and Freedom of Conscience is is an advisory organization to the Monitoring Commission of the Action Plan to Fight Hate Crimes, which is dependent on the Ministry of the Interior..belongs to the Monitoring Commission of the Plan against Hate Crimes of the Ministry of the Interior, according to Garcia.
It requested an explanation for the arrest and fines from the government. According to Garcia, the government justifies itself on the grounds that people who pray in the street are harassing others.
“As the Observatory for Freedom of Religion, we have been able to verify how these people are not harassing anyone, but only exercising their right to religious freedom, which is the most intimate right of the person, because it concerns their conscience,” she said.
