Spain: Therapy ban ‘totalitarian’

The Spanish Evangelical Alliance (AEE) has claimed that new proposals to punish conversion therapy practices with stricter sanctions, including jail terms, are akin to the “anti-conversion laws of totalitarian regimes”.

Spain’s Social Democratic Party have proposed that conversion therapy practices should be included within the Spanish Penal Code. This would see anyone who engages in any form of coercive procedure to “modify, repress, eliminate or deny” someone’s sexual orientation, identity or expression face the possibility of jail terms of six months to two years, according to Evangelical Focus.

Several opposition parties have supported the legislation, but the AEE has responded strongly in a statement, saying that it rejects the bill and pointing out that such practices are already prohibited anyway.