Last Updated: February 04, 2023, 13:15 IST
Alejandro Colomar has ruled in favour of allowing him to continue walking around his village naked, as he has been doing since 2020, in Aldaia, near Valencia, Spain (Image: Reuters)
The local government in Valencia handed out fines to Alejandro Colomar but a regional high court annulled those fines. Spain, however, allows public nudity
A Spanish court has ruled in favour of a man who appealed after being fined for walking naked through the streets of a town in the Valencia region and later tried to attend a court hearing in the nude.
The region’s high court said in a statement it had struck down an appeal against a lower court’s decision earlier to annul fines handed out by Valencia’s regional government to the man for being naked in the streets of Aldaia, a town on the outskirts of the regional capital.
It did, however, acknowledge a “legal vacuum” in Spanish law regarding public nudity.
Alejandro Colomar, 29, was filmed arriving at court wearing just a pair of hiking boots before being ordered to put more clothes on to enter the building. In the trial, he argued that the fines infringed on his right to ideological freedom.
He told Reuters on Friday (February 3) he began stripping off in public in 2020 and has received more support than insults when walking about naked, although he was once threatened with a knife.
“The fine doesn’t make any sense,” he said standing on his bike in Aldaia, near Valencia. “They accused me of obscene exhibitionism. According to the dictionary that implies a sexual intention and it has nothing to do with what I was doing.”
He explained he started appearing naked in public after an argument with a woman when he took off his shirt while exercising.
Colomar said he understood she could not do the same, but blamed the society for it and started going nude.
Public nudity has been legal in Spain since 1988. Anyone can walk naked down a street without being arrested, but some regions such as Valladolid and Barcelona have introduced their own laws to regulate nudism, especially away from the beach.
Cadiz last year reversed a law that prohibited nudism on its urban beaches.
The court noted that no local law in Aldaia prohibits nudism and nor could his nudity be considered to fall within a law that prohibits “acts of obscene exhibitionism”.
Colomar “limited himself to remaining or circulating naked at different times in two different streets of Aldaia,”the court said in its ruling. His behaviour did not imply an “alteration of citizen security, tranquillity or public order.”
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)