Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30093-2004Jan19.html

On January 20, 2004 The Washington Post reported, "Nearly 500,000 Muslims live in Spain, most of them immigrants from North Africa. Tensions with the majority Roman Catholic population are common, and many Muslims say that the Spanish establishment is constantly looking for ways to discredit them. Consequently, many Muslims in Spain were apprehensive in July 2000 when women's rights groups filed a complaint against Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, the imam in the city of Fuengirola, on Spain's southern Mediterranean coast. His book, 'Women in Islam,' incited violence against women, complainants said, by advising men on how to beat women without leaving marks. Prosecutors took up the case, and Mustafa's trial was closely covered by the Spanish media...In its verdict, the court rejected the argument that the texts represented Islamic religion or culture. It concluded that the treatment of women advocated in the book was a personal opinion of Mustafa that broke Spanish and European Union human rights laws."