The Ministry of Education of Murcia, which directs the politics of Vox Mabel Campuzano, is violating the constitutional principle of ideological and religious freedom of citizens and the right that assists parents so that their children receive religious and moral training in accordance with their convictions. This is how forceful is a ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Murcia that has recognized the right of a family to have their children receive Islamic religion classes in a public school in the community. This subject is not taught in any Murcian center despite the fact that some 23,000 minors who profess that creed study in the region, according to data provided by the Islamic Commission of Spain.
The sentence agrees with a woman from Cartagena, who prefers not to give her data for fear of reprisals, and who has spent several courses asking the Ministry of Education to start these classes, which are provided for in the law at the national level since 1992. “It is enough that there are 10 students in a school who request the classes and I received almost 50 requests,” the woman explains to EL PAÍS in a telephone conversation. They were of no use to him, because the council never gave him an answer, and at the beginning of the course he saw with surprise how in the school where his three children study they began to teach evangelical religion classes, in addition to the already established ones of Catholic religion.
He then decided to go to court: “Not only for me, but for the entire Islamic community of Murcia [unas 140.000 personas], which is waiting for someone to move, for someone to recognize their right as that of other religions is recognized”, he adds. Many, he assures him, cannot take the step due to lack of resources or knowledge, including difficulties with the language. The latter is not a problem for her, since she is Spanish.
The sentence of the Superior of Murcia recalls that the Constitution and the law of cooperation of the State with the Islamic Commission, of 1992, establish the right of families for their children to receive religious education in accordance with their convictions. The court highlights that this mother did not even request that religion classes be taught in a specific school, but in one where “the agreed requirements are met.” He also relates that the Islamic Commission of Spain sent the Murcian Administration a list of possible teachers to teach this subject, but the Ministry of Education did not publish any list with the applicants nor did it make any request to the Islamic entity to correct possible errors.
For all these reasons, the ruling warns that “the fundamental right of the appellant’s children to receive Islamic religious education in public centers that meet the requirements in the Region of Murcia has not been respected given the inactivity of the Administration in completing the process initiated so that Islamic religion classes could be taught”. It also condemns the Administration to pay the costs of the process.
The coordinator of the Technical Commission for Education of the Islamic Commission of Spain, Ihab Fahmy, explains by telephone that this situation has been repeated repeatedly since 2014 in the Region of Murcia, where the commission has not been able to teach Islamic religion even on a pilot basis. “Every time we ask for a meeting with the Ministry of Education, the response is to delay those meetings. And when they receive us, it is only to send us off, but not to collaborate. No solutions or proposals have ever been offered, we have not been given alternatives,” he laments. Despite this, he insists that the Islamic Commission offers the council each year a list of possible teachers, as well as a curriculum for the subject, textbooks and other materials, always without a response or with unofficial responses that indicate that the requirements for the selection of teachers are different from those of the rest of Spain, although without specifying which ones.
Meanwhile, every year there are numerous schools that contact the Islamic Commission to ask if these classes will be taught due to the high demand. “We are talking about some 140,000 Muslims who reside in the Region of Murcia, of whom some 23,000 are of school age. They are very important figures. Religion classes are the seed of integration and normalization for these students, for whom the best place in their lives should be school, but they don’t feel fully equal”, warns Fahmy, who insists that the attitude of the counseling does not seem “ethical” to him: “We are not talking about a privilege, but about a right”, he complains.
A spokesman for the Murcian Ministry of Education explains that its legal services are studying the sentence and have not yet decided whether to appeal it. He attributes the “obstacles” that until now have been to teach these classes to the lack of a regional body equivalent to the bishopric of the Catholic religion in the case of the Islamic religion that can “qualify” the teachers.
While waiting for the decision made by Education, the complainant mother takes the sentence “with joy and hope” that next year her children will be able to study Islamic religion. “Education is essential”, not only to give them a future, but also to make them feel “identified” and “proud” of being Spanish as well as Muslim, she explains. “Islam does not teach anything bad, it is based on tolerance and respect. That our children learn it at school helps them to have some values, but also to socialize, to prevent groups from forming, to have an identity, ”she says. And she insists that “hate and racism speeches do not benefit anyone, not even those who launch them”, while education is key for these children “in the future to get up and want to work for their country”.
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