In the wake of the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, the new Spanish government is struggling to find ways to prevent Islamic militants from operating through the country's many tiny, makeshift mosques without violating Spain's religious freedom.
Early this month, the new interior minister, Jose Antonio Alonso, ventured a possible solution: set up a mandatory registry of clerics and places of worship for all religions and monitor all sermons.
Church groups in Spain said the idea was unconstitutional. A Muslim cleric in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in Morocco, called it totalitarian. Angel Acebes, the interior minister in the former government, which was in power when the bombings occurred, said such a measure amounted to "prior censorship" and would be ineffective in fighting terrorism.
An editorial in El Mundo on May 4, under the headline "Integrating Islam Doesn't Mean Having a Complex About Islam," took issue with the idea that Alonso's proposal would apply to all religions. Alonso apparently was trying to avoid being accused of discrimination against Muslims.
"Terrorism is not born in the mosques, it is born out of hate and resentment," said Mansur Escudero, secretary-general of the Islamic Commission of Spain, recognized by the Spanish government as the official voice for the country's 600,000 Muslims. Escudero said the notion of supervising sermons at Friday prayers was "surreal."
But not all of Spain's Muslims agree. "You need a degree to teach at a university, but right now anyone can enter a mosque and preach whatever they like," said Mustafa el-Mrabet, president of the Moroccan Immigrant Workers' Association, which will present a report to the government on the proliferation of what he calls "garage-based mosques."
Mrabet said that Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, the Tunisian identified by the former Spanish government as the coordinator of the Madrid train bombings, preached in one of the roughly 200 unlisted prayer sites that have sprouted throughout the country. "We have to open our eyes," he said.
Forced to retract
The government already keeps a voluntary registry of worship sites, including 235 mosques, throughout Spain. Law-enforcement officials support monitoring the mosques.
But the opposition to the new proposal was so strong that the interior minister was forced to retract it at a recent meeting with Muslim leaders, Escudero said.
He said he would meet monthly with government officials to find a way to satisfy public safety concerns while being respectful of religious freedom.
Money will also figure prominently in the negotiations with the Muslim leaders. While the government provides some financial support to the Roman Catholic Church, the Muslim and Jewish populations receive nothing, a government spokesman confirmed.
Escudero said the lack of resources had led Muslims in Spain to seek money from Saudi Arabia, which promotes a "more rigorous Islamic message" that clashes with the values of a majority of Spain's Muslims.
Other Muslim leaders worry that more money and respect alone will not counteract militants in their midst. They welcome the idea of a mandatory registry.
"If a community knows it has a responsibility to its own followers and to the state, it will be more alert in detecting any abnormal behaviors," said Muhammad Halhoul, spokesman for the Islamic Council of Catalonia, which represents 53 mosques in the northern region along the French border.