Melilla: Muslims Mock Virgin Mary and Start Fight During Holy Week Procession

The solemnity and devotion of the night of Good Friday was tarnished in Melilla by a fight which provoked scenes of panic between penitents of the Virgin de la Soledad [Our Lady of Solitude] and the public who were watching this procession, one of the most popular during Holy Week in the autonomous city. According to the official version of events, reflected in the statement of the National Police, the public disorder started with mocking and contemptuous comments made by four young Muslims who were dining in the terrace of a bar in the centre of Melilla and, it seems, were the worse for wear due to the consumption of alcohol. The four have been arrested and a family has now filed a complaint against them, which the Agrupación de Cofradías de Melilla [Association of (Holy Week) Fraternities of Melilla] is considering joining.

It all started at around quarter past eleven in the night, when the Solitude procession passed in front of the bar, whose terrace is located in a small street a few metres from the synagogue Or Zaruah. The young men made some contemptuous comment about the Virgin, an attitude which was rebuked by a family that was close to them and able to hear the insults directed at the religious image. But far from retracting them, those have now been detained continued with their mockery. It was then that a fight started, lighting the fuse of general disorder.

According to the testimony of people who were present, the dispute even involved glasses, plates and bar furniture being thrown. The noise that the impact of these objects provoked, added to the shouts of the tumult, reached the procession, which traditionally moves through the centre of Melilla in silence and darkness because of the grief of Good Friday.

It was then that many of those who were there, not knowing what was happening, started to run to escape the tumult. The stampede of penitents and members of the public also caused moments of fear for the little nazarenos [people wearing the hooded garments] of the Solitude, who were "crying disconsolately" looking for their parents, according to one of the officials of the Cofradía de la Soledad [Fraternity of Solitude].

...Incidents of this type are not common in Melilla, a city marked by respect between the religious faiths that form its society... The interculturalism of Melilla even makes possible the fact that on Holy Thursday el Cautivo [procession of an emblem of Jesus in chains during which prisoners are pardoned] liberated more Muslim than Christian prisoners.

Source: El Mundo H/T: Maria José, Cheradenine Zakalwe