Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

RELIGION

Seven surprising facts about Spain’s Holy Week

It's one of Spain's most exciting festivals, and also one of its most mysterious and passionate. Here The Local tells you everything you wanted to know about the country's Holy Week, or Semana Santa, but were too afraid to ask.

Published: 14 April 2014 18:28 CEST
Seven surprising facts about Spain's Holy Week
Why do people dress up in skeleton costumes for Easter in the Catalan town of Verges? Photo: Dantzan/Flickr

How much does it cost to stage your average over-the-top Easter procession in Spain?

Click here to go straight to The Local's gallery of seven surprising facts about Easter in Spain.

Why do people wear those strange pointed hats and long cloaks?

What's the reasoning behind the Spanish Government's tradition of pardoning convicted prisoners during Holy Week?

And why do people dress up in skeleton costumes in the Catalan town of Verges? 

These questions and more are all answered in The Local's gallery of seven surprising facts about Easter in Spain.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

RELIGION

Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

The Sunni Muslim world's most prestigious educational institution, Al-Azhar in Egypt, has called for the boycott of Swedish and Dutch products after far-right activists destroyed Korans in those countries.

Published: 26 January 2023 15:10 CET
Al-Azhar university calls for Sweden boycott over Koran burning

Al-Azhar, in a statement issued on Wednesday, called on “Muslims to boycott Dutch and Swedish products”.

It also urged “an appropriate response from the governments of these two countries” which it charged were “protecting despicable and barbaric crimes in the name of ‘freedom of expression'”.

Swedish-Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan on Saturday set fire to a copy of the Muslim holy book in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, raising tensions as Sweden courts Ankara over its bid to join Nato.

EXPLAINED:

The following day, Edwin Wagensveld, who heads the Dutch chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida, tore pages out of the Koran during a one-man protest outside parliament.

Images on social media also showed him walking on the torn pages of the holy book.

The desecration of the Koran sparked strong protests from Ankara and furious demonstrations in several capitals of the Muslim world including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the Koran burning, expressing “deep concern at the recurrence of such events and the recent Islamophobic escalation in a certain number of European countries”.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson condemned Paludan’s actions as “deeply disrespectful”, while the United States called it “repugnant”.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said the burning was the work of “a provocateur” who “may have deliberately sought to put distance between two close partners of ours – Turkey and Sweden”.

On Tuesday, Turkey postponed Nato accession talks with Sweden and Finland, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Stockholm for allowing weekend protests that included the burning of the Koran.

SHOW COMMENTS