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MADRID: Spain’s government on Friday criticized a ban enacted in a southeastern town that prohibits religious gatherings in public sports centers, a measure that will mainly affect members of the town’s Muslim community who in recent years have used the spaces to celebrate religious holidays.

The ban — approved last week by the conservative local government of Jumilla, a town of 27,000 — has since become a flashpoint. Its critics, including Spain’s leftwing national government, have condemned the measure as discriminatory while some on the right are celebrating it as a means to uphold the nation’s Christian culture.

Spain’s Migration Minister Elma Saiz said on Friday the ban was “shameful,” and urged local leaders to “take a step back” and apologize to local residents.

Saiz told Spain’s Antena 3 broadcaster that the measure is “attacking and harming people, citizens who have been living for decades in our towns, in our cities, in our country, contributing and perfectly integrated without any problems of coexistence.”

The ban is the latest controversy involving Spain’s hot-button issues of immigration and multi-culturalism, following clashes last month in the southern Murcia region between far-right groups and local residents and migrants. They erupted after an elderly resident in the town of Torre-Pacheco was beaten up by assailants believed to be of Moroccan origin, which prompted far-right groups to call for retribution on the area’s large migrant population.

Conservative officials in Jumilla, an agriculture-based economy of rolling vineyards, olive and almond trees, defended the ban on Friday.

The town’s mayor Seve González told Spain’s El País newspaper that the measure did not single out any one group and that her government’s wanted to “promote cultural campaigns that defend our identity.”

The measure was initially proposed by the far-right Vox party and then amended and approved by the center-right Popular Party, to which the mayor belongs. It stipulates that municipal sports facilities — where the town’s Muslim community has held religious celebrations — cannot be used for cultural, social or religious activities unrelated to the city council.

Mohamed El Ghaidouni, secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain that represents more than 900 Muslim communities in the country, called the ban “institutionalized Islamophobia.”

He criticized the local government’s justification for the motion and its allegation that two main Muslim festivals traditionally celebrated in the sports centers — Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and Eid Al-Adha, or “Feast of the Sacrifice” — were “foreign to the town’s identity.”

The ban, he added, “clashes with the institutions of the Spanish state” that protect religious freedom.

Vox’s branch in the Murcia region celebrated it, saying Wednesday on X that “Spain is and always will be a land of Christian roots!”

“We must protect public spaces from practices foreign to our culture and our way of life,” the party’s leader Santiago Abascal wrote Friday, adding that “Spain is not Al Andalus,” referencing the historic name for Islamic Spain.

For centuries, Spain was ruled by Muslims, whose influence is present both in the Spanish language and in many of the country’s most celebrated landmarks, including Granada’s famed Moorish Alhambra Palace. Islamic rule ended in 1492 when the last Arab kingdom in Spain fell to the Catholics.

Right-wing governments elsewhere in Europe have passed measures similar to the ban in Jumilla, striking at the heart of ongoing debates about nationalism and religious pluralism.

Last year in Monfalcone, a large industrial port city in northeastern Italy with a significant Bangladeshi immigrant population, its far-right mayor, Anna Maria Cisint, banned prayers outside of places of worship. The move led to protests involving some 8,000 people. The city’s Muslim community is appealing the ban in a regional court.

MOSCOW: Russians on the streets of Moscow on Friday held little hope that an upcoming summit between their president, Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump would help end the conflict in Ukraine.

Both presidents have said they are set to meet, possibly as early as next week, as Trump intensifies his bid to convince Moscow to halt its more than three-year-long military offensive.

The former reality TV star has spent his first months in office trying to broker peace — after initially boasting that he could end the conflict in 24 hours.

Multiple rounds of peace talks, telephone calls and diplomatic visits have failed to yield a breakthrough.

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst,” Irina, a 57-year-old lawyer, told AFP in sunny central Moscow.

“To be honest, I have no hopes,” she added.

The fighting will likely go on until both sides run out of resources, she said.

Tens of thousands have been killed since Russia launched its offensive in February 2022, with millions forced to flee their homes and much of east and southern Ukraine destroyed.

Though Sergei, a 28-year-old car parts merchant welcomed the move toward peace, he said, “the conflict has got bogged down, it will definitely not end now.”

“I don’t think we’ll get any clarity next week, unfortunately,” said Arseniy, a 21-year-old student.

Noone that AFP spoke to agreed to give their surname, with Moscow having introduced strict censorship laws that prohibit any criticism of its offensive on Ukraine or comments that could be seen as going against the Kremlin.

Putin has stuck to his maximalist claims, demanding that Ukraine cede more territory if it wants his army to stop advancing on the ground.

“Whether you like it or not, we have to go all the way,” said Natalya, 79, a retired medical worker.

Russia will have to “clean up Ukraine — absolutely everything, including the western part,” she added.

At talks in June, Russia demanded that Ukraine pull its forces out of four regions Moscow claims to have annexed, shun Western military support and be excluded from joining NATO.

For Tatiana, 39, who works on Russia’s railways, talks felt like they had been ongoing for an “eternity,” without anything to show for them.

She had little interest in where the front line was or what land Russia might secure in a peace deal.

“It doesn’t matter. I’d rather it be frozen already,” she said.

“We have enough of our territory.”

Kyiv wants an immediate ceasefire and has said that it will never recognize Russian control over its land — although it has acknowledged that it would likely have to try to secure the return of land captured by Russia through diplomacy, not on the battlefield.

Leonid, a 70-year-old retiree with a short grey goatee beard, was one of the few to show a degree of optimism.

“Putin and Trump may agree on something, at least on some kind of ceasefire,” he told AFP.

“Any kind of peace is better than a quarrel.”