A Spanish high court passed a judgement in favour of a 29-year-old man who was fined for walking naked on the streets of a town in the region of Valencia. He later appeared in a court hearing without clothes.
The region’s high court stated it had declined an appeal against a judgement by a lower court to invalidate fines for the man for being naked in the streets of Aldaia, a town outside the region’s capital.
The court agreed to a “legal vacuum” in Spanish law on public nudity.
Alejandro Colomar, a 29-year-old man, was filmed on his way to court wearing only a pair of hiking boots when he was directed to wear clothes before entering the building. During his trial, he argued that the fines violated his right to ideological freedom.
He shared with the British news agency Reuters that he started taking off his clothes publicly in 2020 and gathered more support than insults when he went around naked. One time, Colomar was threatened with a knife.
He said, “The fine doesn’t make any sense.”
“They accused me of obscene exhibitionism. According to the dictionary that implies sexual intent and (that) has nothing to do with what I was doing.”
Since 1988, public nudity has been legal in Spain. Any person has the right to be naked publicly without being arrested. But certain places such as Valladolid and Barcelona have laid their laws to control public nudity, especially in areas away from the beach. The court cited that Aldaia does not have a law forbidding nudism.
The Valencia court decided that Colomar had “limited himself to remaining or circulating naked at different times in two different streets of Aldaia” and his conduct did not suggest an “alteration of citizen security, tranquillity or public order.”
