Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 2013-03-04

The supreme court of Spain has overturned the city of Lleida’s ban on women wearing full-face veils such as burqas or niqabs in public buildings, citing religious freedom and saying the city's argument of security concerns was unfounded.

However the court also said the ban could increase discrimination, rather than help eliminate it, as it may force some women to stay at home and therefore not integrate at all into Spanish society. The city had argued that immigrants would struggle to integrate if they used the veil and said the custom would disturb the local culture and create security problems.

Lleida in the Catalan language and Leridain Spanish banned the wearing of full-face veils in public buildings three years ago. It was considered largely symbolic as only a small per cent of the town's 120,000 population are Muslims and only 20 women don full-face veil

The city banned the veil about the same time that rules against veils in France and Belgium set off controversy. Barcelona and other cities in Catalonia followed with similar bans on full-face veils, which are rarely seen in Spain, home to about 1.6 million Muslims. It was not immediately clear whether the Lleida ruling would apply to those cities also.

The case against Lleida all of whose justifications for the ban were ruled unfounded was brought by the Watani Liberty and Justice Association who has been lobbying for 3 years to lift the ban and it looks like they finally prevailed.

Spain has a Muslim minority of 1.4 million, making up about 3 percent of the country’s population, according to the Islamic Commission of Spain. The country has no national law on religious garb and Islam is the second religion after Christianity that has been recognized through the 1967 law of religious freedom.