The Spanish government is drawing up plans to triple the size of its anti-terrorist force and take control of the funding of mosques among other emergency measures to fight Islamic terrorism.
According to reports published yesterday, the interior minister, Jose Antonio Alonso, has outlined the plans to the centre-Right opposition party. They include finding ways of monitoring the content of preaching in mosques.
"The state must be able to know and to ensure that religious freedom is not used for other purposes," Mr Alonso was quoted as saying.
The Moroccan Immigrant Workers' Association complained that up to now funding had been left in the hands of Saudi-backed imams who preached a radical form of Wahhabi Islam.
Other Muslim groups and the opposition People's Party have criticised the possible reforms as encroaching on religious freedom.
The debate on religious organisation, brought about by the Madrid train bombings in March that killed 191 people, has shifted dramatically towards the more restrictive French model of permitting state-approved mosques.
In addition, the government wants to boost financing for mosques and develop relations between the authorities and the country's 600,000-strong Muslim community.
It is estimated that there are 400 mosques or Muslim religious centres nationwide. The justice ministry has a register of 235 Muslim communities but has no idea of the number of mosques in Spain or of who is preaching in them.
Any reform in Spain must respect "religious freedom and the safety of citizens", said Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, the first deputy prime minister.
El Periodico newspaper in Barcelona reported that the new socialist government was considering tripling to 300 the number of policemen appointed to fight terrorism.
"We really need to improve the laws to control Islamic radicals. We need to get to a legal situation in which we can control the imams in small mosques," said Mr Alonso. "That is where the Islamic fundamentalism that lead to certain actions is disseminated."
Mansur Escudero, the president of the Islamic Council, said: "I never thought that a socialist minister with a progressive attitude and respect for the constitution would launch such an attack on religious freedom. Will there be a policeman standing at the back of every mosque?"
Meanwhile, in a move that has drawn much criticism from conservatives, the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela has announced that it will withdraw a statue of Spain's patron saint, St James the Moor Slayer, because it could be construed as insulting to Muslims. The statue depicts the heads of decapitated Moors at the saint's feet.