VZCZCXRO0991
RR RUEHAST
DE RUEHMD #1262/01 1391449
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 191449Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY MADRID
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9754
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT 5949
RUEHCL/AMCONSUL CASABLANCA 1523

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MADRID 001262 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR EUR/WE CLEMENTS AND HALL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KISL SP
SUBJECT: MUSLIMS IN SPAIN: FINDING A WAY FORWARD 
 
REF: 05 MADRID 645 
 
MADRID 00001262  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1. (U) Summary. Spain's diverse and rapidly growing Muslim 
community is new to the country and does not yet identify 
itself as Spanish. The community's national representation 
has recently been experienced significant upheaval, prompting 
many to question the structure of a Muslim religious 
leadership which in fact has very little contact with the 
group it represents. Meanwhile, an increasing number of 
secular and grassroots organizations are working on the 
project of integration of Muslim immigrant communities, 
prompting some to question whether it is more important to 
focus on religious or socio-economic issues in dealing with 
the community. Neither the Spanish government nor Spanish 
society has a clear picture of how to move forward, but the 
Muslim population continues to grow exponentially. End 
summary. 
 
¶2. (U) The presence of a large Muslim population -- mostly 
from Morocco and Algeria but also from Syria, and other 
Islamic countries in Spain is a new phenomenon, particularly 
when compared to other European countries. During the Franco 
dictatorship, which ended upon his death in 1975, and through 
the transition to democracy, Spain was an exporter of 
migrants to other parts of Europe and to Latin America. When 
the Spanish government signed religious accords with minority 
religious groups -- Jews, Protestants, and Muslims -- in 1992 
(giving the religions official recognition where the Catholic 
Church had been the only recognized religious entity before), 
there were an estimated 50,000 Muslims in Spain, mostly 
Spanish converts to Islam and a group of immigrants from 
Syria, and the Palestinian territories and other parts of the 
Middle East. Today, official statistics put that number at 
least 700,000, including almost 500,000 Moroccans. Unofficial 
estimates -- which include illegal immigrants -- suggest that 
there are more than 1 million Muslims in Spain, approaching 
2.5% of the total population, and continuing exponential 
growth. 
 
¶3. (U) Immigrants from Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan and 
Sub-Saharan African countries are economic migrants, in Spain 
to work mostly in the areas of agriculture, construction, and 
services (restaurants and domestic service). They are 
concentrated in Madrid and Barcelona, as well as in the 
agricultural regions in Valencia and Andalusia. Because of 
strict Spanish nationality laws, these Muslims are not yet 
Spanish citizens with any sort of political voice. Spanish 
law requires residents from countries other than certain 
Latin American states (which because of their historic ties 
to Spain have been allowed to negotiate special bilateral 
nationality agreements) to reside legally in Spain for ten 
years before undertaking a lengthy bureaucratic process 
leading to citizenship. 
 
¶4. (U) Because of the relatively recent arrival of most 
Muslim immigrants to Spain, in addition to the legal 
obstacles, unlike in the UK, France or Germany, there are few 
Muslims who are either culturally or legally Spanish. Recent 
immigrants struggle with the language and are too busy 
working to send money back to families across the straits of 
Gibraltar to involve themselves in Spanish society, 
culturally or politically. While many Spaniards worry that 
Muslims in Spain are not integrating well, most of these 
first-generation immigrants are still more concerned with 
immediate personal issues than with broader issues of 
cultural or religious identity. 
 
------------------------------ 
The Voice of Islam in Spain... 
------------------------------ 
¶5. (U) Representing this disparate community at the national 
level is the Islamic Commission of Spain (CIE), formed at the 
time of the 1992 accords to be the community's interlocutor 
with the government on Muslim issues. The Commission is the 
union of two Muslim organizations in Spain: The Spanish 
Federation of Islamic Religious Entities (FEERI), made up 
mostly of Spanish converts to Islam, and the Union of Islamic 
Communities of Spain (UCIDE), a group of long-term 
middle-class immigrants from the Middle East. These were more 
or less the only Muslim groups in 1992, and as the Muslim 
population in Spain has grown, they have continued to 
monopolize the national political discussion on Islam. 
 
------------------ 
...and its critics 
------------------ 
¶6. (SBU) In 2006, however, most Muslims in Spain are not 
members of these organizations, and they are not necessarily 
 
MADRID 00001262  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
aware of what the Commission does at the national level. 
While CIE leaders have often presented statistics on the 
growing Muslim community in Spain, they have done little 
outreach to those they supposedly represent. CIE has been 
criticized by Muslims outside the religious sphere for its 
lack of a democratic mandate and inability to represent the 
interests of the community. In particular, there is little 
(and until recently no) representation of the massive 
Moroccan community with the CIE. Mohammed Chaib, a deputy in 
the Catalan regional parliament and the only Muslim 
parliamentary representative at the regional or national 
level in Spain, has been a vocal critic of the Commission, 
claiming that its failure to engage with the new Muslim 
immigrant populations has impeded their integration into 
Spanish society and given free rein to extremists with 
intolerant or violent messages. This fringe element has led 
to fear and mistrust on the part of Spaniards toward their 
Muslim neighbors, as can be seen in the battles over the 
building of mosques all over Spain, as well as in occasional 
anti-Muslim vandalism and threats on mosques and Islamic 
cultural centers. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Kamal Rahmouni, president of the secular Association 
of Moroccan Workers and Immigrants in Spain (ATIME), says 
that the CIE should play a stronger role in certifying imams 
and speaking out against religious leaders who preach 
intolerance. Rahmouni claims that while the CIE speaks of 
tolerance to the government and the media (former Secretary 
General Mansur Escudero -- who has no religious certification 
-- issued a fatwa against Usama bin Laden in 2006), it is 
passive in the face of growing religious extremism. As 
mentioned in reftel, in 2004, ATIME made a proposal to the 
Minister of Justice (MOJ) for the creation of a Muslim 
Council, which would be democratically elected and would be 
responsible for evaluating the building of mosques (many of 
which are financed opaquely, with funding from the Gulf) and 
monitoring the teaching of Islam in public and private 
schools. The proposal was an obvious challenge to the Islamic 
Commission, which responded vehemently that there was no 
need. The MOJ replied that it would not interfere in the 
decision over who should represent or organize Islam in 
Spain. The question is not settled within the community, and 
the government does not want to play a role in policing 
religion. (Note: However, the Spanish National Police 
operates an active outreach program with both official and 
unofficial Muslim groups to monitor trends in the community 
and to transmit a sense of official tolerance.) 
 
---------------------------- 
A challenge to the old guard 
---------------------------- 
¶8. (SBU) A coup of sorts occurred in January 2006, when the 
leadership of FEERI, previously dominated by Spanish converts 
to Islam, was challenged and taken over by a group of more 
conservative Muslims, including Mouneir Al Messery, the imam 
of the Saudi-funded M-30 Mosque (named for the Madrid ring 
road where it is located) and Haider Souilem Isli, of the 
Islamic Community of Fuengirola in Malaga. While the former 
FEERI leadership left the organization (and later started a 
new one), claiming that the new leadership would bring about 
the radicalization of the Islamic Commission, FEERI's new 
president, Felix Herrero (also a Spanish convert to Islam), 
pointed out that in a country where the Muslim community is 
so diverse, "...before, the entire leadership (of FEERI) were 
Muslims of Spanish origin, while now there are Algerians, 
Egyptians and Moroccans." He added that the new board 
included Shia Muslims as well, again broadening 
representation. Meanwhile he reiterated that Al Qaeda 
terrorism was "unIslamic." The new leaders have made numerous 
public relations efforts, for example sending Imam Messery 
and other members of the leadership to speak at press events 
and conferences. 
 
¶9. (SBU) The unexpected result of the change at FEERI has 
been increasing pressure from the numerous new grassroots 
Muslim and immigrant organizations to enter the Islamic 
Commission, previously the realm only of the original 
signatories of the 1992 accords. According to Embassy 
contacts at the Spanish Ministry of Justice's Office of 
Religious Affairs, many activists have approached the 
Ministry in recent months to inquire how their associations 
might participate. The MOJ has so far refused to interfere in 
what it considers the Muslim community's decision on who 
should represent it in government interactions. Nonetheless, 
they say, pressure is building for the CIE to broaden its 
membership and create a more democratic entity. This will 
certainly make the organization more representative of the 
wide spectrum of Muslims in Spain, but it may also open a 
 
MADRID 00001262  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
sort of Pandora's Box, revealing fissures within the 
community. 
 
------------------------- 
But does religion matter? 
------------------------- 
¶10. (SBU) But while the Islamic religious organizations 
battle for influence with the national government in Spain, 
it is unclear that many of them have a clear understanding of 
the needs of the relatively newly arrived immigrants from 
North Africa and other Islamic countries. In the wake of 
terrorist bombings in Spain and the UK, and especially 
following the 2005 riots in France, many began to wonder out 
loud what path Spain should follow to avoid something similar 
happening here. Some are suggesting that most problems in 
Muslim communities stem from social and/or economic 
exclusion, leading to a push for programs to promote the 
integration of these communities into Spanish society. 
 
¶11. (SBU) The Spanish government under the Socialist Jose 
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has approached the Muslim community 
as an issue of economic and social integration rather than of 
religious difference. (Zapatero's recent meeting with thirty 
leaders from the Muslim religious community was held 
primarily for Zapatero to promote his biggest foreign policy 
priority, the Alliance of Civilizations.) While the Zapatero 
government's policies have been favorable to immigration and 
to religious diversity, the GOS handles issues of religion 
and immigration across several different Ministries, and many 
have criticized it for lack of coordination. 
 
¶12. (U) The job of trying to integrate the Muslim community 
has therefore mostly fallen to civil society groups, rather 
than to the government or CIE. ATIME has about 35,000 members 
and offices all over Spain where it advises immigrants on 
work and school issues, immigration problems, and Spanish 
society in general. ATIME's leadership also regularly speaks 
out in support of immigrant rights and engages the media on 
the benefits of immigration. The labor union Comisiones 
Obreras (CCOO) has been particularly active in recruiting 
immigrants of all nationalities, and has a network of more 
than 70 offices throughout the country where immigrants 
receive similar services to those of ATIME, with no 
obligation to join the union (though of course there is 
pitch). And there is an increasing number of new 
organizations reaching out to Muslims on a variety of issues, 
including women's rights, education, and functioning in the 
labor market. With these secular models, some mosques and 
Islamic religious center in Spain have attempted to reach out 
both to Muslims to facilitate their integration, as well as 
to the community at large, to build bridges and show a 
willingness to take part in Spanish society. 
 
¶13. (SBU) As Ana Planet, a consultant in the office of 
religious affairs at the Spanish Ministry of Justice, said in 
a meeting with Poloff, religion is not necessarily the 
central issue when looking at Spain's Muslims. The MOJ 
attempts to put safeguards in place safeguards to ensure that 
Muslims are not discriminated against based on their 
religion, but in the end the success of the Muslim community 
will depend to a great extent on its social and economic 
development within Spain. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
¶14. (SBU) Spain is just coming to grips with the fact that it 
is a country with a large Muslim immigrant population. 
Spain's Muslim community, in the early stages of existence, 
is looking to identify the path it will take forward. At 
present, it seems the Spanish -- against their usual 
centralizing tendencies -- are moving forward in a 
laissez-faire manner, much like the UK experience, where 
groups of Muslims set up their own associations and support 
institutions. The GOS seems to want to do something to create 
structures to deal with the diverse and quickly growing 
population of Muslims in Spain, but it hasn't yet decided 
what structures to build and how to go about it. Meanwhile 
there are literally no Muslims in the national government or 
on the national political scene, and extremely few even on 
the regional and municipal levels. With more and more mumbles 
on the street about the growing presence of Muslims, not to 
mention concerns about the possibility of social unrest or 
terrorism down the road, the Spanish government and society 
face the new challenge of working to integrate the Muslim 
community in a still largely Catholic society and building 
inter-religious and societal tolerance.  Embassy Madrid's 
active Muslim outreach program has focused on the tolerance 
 
MADRID 00001262  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
theme as an important message. 
MANZANARES