Spanish observatory counts 306 attacks on religious freedom in 2025, its highest total

The Observatory for Religious Freedom and Freedom of Conscience (OLRC) has presented its 2025 annual report, documenting 306 attacks on religious freedom in Spain. It is the highest figure the group has recorded since it published its first report in 2012. The total is up 26 percent from 2024, when the observatory counted 243 cases, and 57 percent from 2023, when it counted 195.

Catholics were the target of 173 direct attacks, 56.5 percent of the total. Militant secularism accounted for 60 of those cases and mockery of religion for 40, along with 49 attacks on places of worship and religious symbols and 23 cases of abuse directed at believers. Together with 33 attacks against Christians in general, five against evangelicals and one against Orthodox Christians, Christians as a whole were the target of two out of every three attacks, 69 percent of the total. The Jewish community, which makes up less than 0.1 percent of the population, was the target of 40 attacks, 13 percent of the total and 13 times the number recorded in 2022. Muslims were targeted in 26 cases, 8.5 percent of the total, up from 11 in 2024. Jehovah's Witnesses were targeted in 11 cases, and 17 cases were directed at all faiths without distinction.

Violence and damage to religious property

The report documents six cases of direct physical violence against believers, the same number as in 2024: two Christians, two Jehovah's Witnesses, one Jew and one Muslim. Among them was a jihadist attack in the Madrid district of Vallecas on November 22, 2025, when an 18-year-old stabbed three people and attacked police officers. The report says he told his mother he had "to kill Christians."

Attacks on places of worship and religious symbols rose from 46 cases in 2024 to 73 in 2025, an increase of 59 percent. They include large-scale desecration of cemeteries, with crosses torn out, headstones smashed and flowers and wreaths stolen. Thefts in churches included bronze candlesticks and ornaments, along with attempts to force open tabernacles. Two fires were set deliberately in less than eight hours in Jerez de la Frontera on January 26. Nativity scenes were vandalized, with five figures decapitated in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on January 2. Graffiti in Arabic using symbols employed by Daesh in Mosul, Iraq, appeared in a church in Madrid, and crosses were destroyed. Cases of abuse directed at believers rose from 30 to 50, an increase of 67 percent, and mockery of religion from 67 to 72 cases, 7 percent more.

Militant secularism accounted for 105 cases, the highest figure recorded in two consecutive years and 12 percent more than the 94 cases in 2024. The report says these cases show active institutional and political hostility toward religious groups. They include discriminatory administrative decisions, statements by government ministers supporting the public mockery of religious symbols, bills to remove legal protection for religious feelings, and fines imposed on citizens for praying in the street.

Political and institutional responsibility

Almost one in three attacks originated with politicians or parliamentary parties, according to the report. Political parties were directly responsible for 105 cases, 34 percent of the total. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) led the list with 31 incidents, followed by Sumar with 26 and Podemos with 18. The OLRC said that "the fact that two parties that form part of the Government of Spain lead the list of political actors responsible for attacks on religious freedom is a cause for concern," and said the attacks pointed to "an active, organized institutional hostility that is at times financed with public funds."

The state broadcaster RTVE accounts for five documented cases. The first came on January 1, during the broadcast of the Campanadas, the New Year chimes, when the channel aired an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus altered to show a cow's head. The minister of the presidency and justice publicly applauded it and immediately announced he intended to reform the Penal Code to remove the protection of religious feelings. Days later, RTVE's star presenter did it again, using another altered image of the same symbol. The program Directo al Grano, on the channel La 1, described the "growth of the evangelical Church" as "worrying" and "dangerous" on September 22. Among online outlets, Nueva Tribuna is responsible for five cases and Público for three. Both belong to the Display Connectors group.

Political measures affecting religious freedom

The report documents specific initiatives aimed at restricting religious rights. A secondary school in Logroño banned the Islamic veil, and the principal expelled a student on September 15. Evangelical religion classes were withdrawn in Aragon, where more than 1,000 students had no teacher under contract for the 2025/26 school year. Parties objected to religious concerts at public events in Zaragoza during the Fiestas del Pilar. There were proposals to remove references to God from official Basque ceremonies, including a swearing-in of the lendakari, the head of the Basque regional government, that would be "secular and without mentions of God." Motions on "municipal secularity" sought restrictive local rules. There were also petitions to reverse the registration of Church-owned property in Córdoba and Navarre, and parliamentary criticism of religious orders that run children's homes by the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) in Galicia on August 29.

Senior politicians criticized the Church directly. Santiago Abascal, of Vox, questioned the bishops' position on immigration, suggesting it was due to "public funding," "collaboration with cases of pedophilia" and "Islamist advance." Silvia Orriols, of Aliança Catalana, demanded that the Church speak out on "pedophilia," "dictatorial regimes" and "rejection of the homosexual community." Antonio Maíllo, of Izquierda Unida (United Left), called for reversing the registration of the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba. Juan Ignacio Varela-Portas de Orduña, of Más Madrid/Sumar, told the Madrid Assembly on December 11 that Catholic universities aim to "ideologically mold" students in line with "neoliberal and ultra-Catholic ideologies."

Artistic freedom and mockery

The OLRC says it found a recurring pattern in which "artistic freedom" and "freedom of expression" are used to justify mockery and ridicule of religious groups, especially Catholicism. The report records political party posters with sexually explicit content using religious images, later sold as T-shirts. It also lists television sketches on private channels parodying the liturgy and prayer, podcasts calling the Church a "sect" and priests "fanatics," carnival performances mocking Christians, and opinion columns insulting believers. The observatory says that this freedom "is not unlimited" and that "a society that tolerates this against believers would not tolerate it in comparable terms against other groups protected by law," which it calls a violation of the principle of equality.

The Penal Code reform

The report describes as an imminent threat the plan to remove article 525 of the Penal Code, which protects against offenses to religious feelings. The observatory's president, María García, said: "If mocking religious beliefs already costs people little enough, it is going to be a free-for-all." The OLRC notes that bills to "remove protection for religious feelings" have already been introduced by parties in the governing coalition.

Where the cases occurred

Andalusia recorded the largest number of cases, with 37, followed by Catalonia with 32 and the Community of Madrid with 31. The Basque Country and the Valencian Community each recorded 17. A further 78 cases were national in scope, arising from institutional statements, legislation, decisions by the central government and state media, and affecting the whole country. The report says "the territorial breakdown partly reflects the distribution of the population, but also the activity of certain political and media actors heavily concentrated in those regions."

International use of the report and the observatory's demands

The OLRC says its report is used as a source by the U.S. State Department and by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which recently published a guide on hate crimes against Christians. The observatory also advises the monitoring commission of the Interior Ministry's action plan against hate crimes, and has worked with the Religious Freedom Laboratory of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland, and with the international organization Open Doors.

García said that "believers are not second-class citizens" and that "those who have faith should not hide their beliefs in public life." She added: "A believer is a believer, with everything that entails, 24 hours a day," rejecting the idea that faith should be confined to private life.

The observatory sets out demands for the Spanish government, the legislature and the judiciary, the regional governments and municipalities. It asks for protection for religious symbols and churches, for the crime of offending religious feelings to stay in the Penal Code, for effective respect for the right to pray in public places and for an end to anti-religious hate speech from public institutions. It also calls for compliance with agreements signed with religious groups on education, planning permits for places of worship without undue delay, training for civil servants on religious freedom, protocols in public services and prevention plans in the regions with the most attacks. Other demands include protection of religious historical and artistic heritage, permission to hold processions and religious demonstrations, and mechanisms to receive and handle complaints about violations of religious freedom.

The report concludes that Spain has an obligation to its citizens and under international law to guarantee religious freedom.