The PP and Vox will approve the law to prohibit the burqa in public spaces

PalmaThe Parliament approved this Tuesday to process a Vox bill that calls for the prohibition of the burqa and niqab (full veils) in public spaces. The initial debate on the rule went ahead with the support of the PP. Once the text is definitively approved, it will be sent to the Congress of Deputies, as the Balearic Chamber does not have the powers to regulate an organic law or change state-level regulations.

The initiative by the far-right party also calls for the Penal Code to be reformed to impose prison sentences of between one and three and a half years on anyone who coerces women to wear these items of clothing; and between two and a half and four years in cases involving vulnerable minors.

The parliamentary spokesperson for Vox, Manuela Cañadas, has stated that in Spain "Islamic practices or any other type that denigrate women have no place": "It means accepting a medieval regression in the 21st century", she said. For her part, the PP deputy Cristina Gil defended the PP's vote by stating that allowing "the full veil institutionalizes the invisibility of women". She also railed against the left's "carpet feminism". "Do not outrage women any more", she stated.

"They hand over the keys of political centrality to Vox"

The PSIB deputy Teresa Suárez has lashed out at Vox for saying that, with this initiative, it is defending women, when her party "voted no to the state pact against gender violence". "They continue to stigmatize, generate fear, saying that things that happen in Afghanistan will happen here, and that is not true", she lamented, and criticized the PP: "They hand over the keys of political centrality to Vox".

In the same vein, the representative of MÉS per Mallorca Marta Carrió has criticized Vox for having a "profoundly Islamophobic discourse". "We do not deny that [the burqa and the niqab] are expressions of patriarchy, they are, as well as other forms of control over the body that women encounter in all cultures and religions", she stressed. "This bill criminalizes women, who not only suffer the violence of machismo in the form of a burqa, but also, women who are forced to wear it when they go out on the street out of necessity will be sanctioned by the State", she continued.

Regarding the representative of Més per Menorca Joana Gomila, she lamented that the debate does not want to face the issue rigorously, but rather "stigmatize the Islamic religion". "Prohibiting does not empower, but rather expels", she added. While the deputy of Esquerra Unida, José María García, has accused Vox of "emulating the Catholic Monarchs and driving out of this land those they do not like".