No flouting the burka ban

EIGHT months since Coin became the first town in Andalucia to ban the burka in municipal public areas, there have been no cases of anyone disobeying the law. Mayor Gabriel Clavijo said that there had been no problems, and that the Local Police had not had to intervene since the law was approved on June 28, 2010.

The Presidents of the Al Andalus Islamic Association in Malaga and Councillor for the Spanish Muslim Federation, Felix Angel Herrera, said at the time that they were “wasting their time banning something that did not exist.”

He said none of the Muslim women in Malaga use a burka, although the councillor for Equality in Coin, Inmaculada Aguera, said that three women in the town were seen wearing them.

There are some 2,500 Moroccans and 600 Muslims from other countries living in Coin, a town of 22,000 inhabitants, and there are rumours that there are plans to build a mosque in the town.