Catalonia today became the first region in mainland Spain to ban bullfighting. Animal rights activists collected 180,000 signatures calling on the region’s assembly to legislate against the centuries-old Spanish tradition.
Warning: this video contains images which may cause distress
Video by Tijn Sadee
Cheers broke out in the assembly as the ban was approved by 68 votes in favour and 55 against. There were nine abstentions. Catalonia, whose capital Barcelona is Spain’s second-largest city, follows the lead of the Canary Islands, which banned bullfighting in 1991.
Dozens of supporters and opponents of the blood sport rallied in front of the parliament building with placards reading “Stop animal cruelty” and “Bulls yes, freedom yes.”
Dwindling fans
Bullfighting has a passionate following elsewhere in Spain and leading matadors are treated as celebrities. But in Barcelona the last working bullring now holds fights only twice a month. It attracts just a couple of hundred season ticket holders compared to some 20,000 at Madrid’s main bullring.
However, it is not just the dwindling number of fans or animal rights campaigners who have persuaded legislators to take action. Some critics believe that the ban is more the result of regional political differences and the desire to show Catalonia as more civilised than the rest of Spain.
RNW’s correspondent in Barcelona, Robert Boschaert, says:
“I don’t think you will find in the rest of Spain a social majority in favour of voting in a prohibition like they have just done in Barcelona. And even in Barcelona there are some who say that although they don’t like bullfights, this is the wrong way to go about it. They think that people should have just waited until bullfighting died out as it did on the Canary Islands.”
Cruel and uncivilised
The Conservative opposition has vowed to prevent the ban taking effect. But it is unlikely to go against the wishes of such a large number of voters, who say that bullfighting is cruel and uncivilised.
The ban is due to come into effect on 1 January 2012.
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Ιs very hard to sight, and even harder bullfight that continues to have spectators in the new millennium ..... think we need regeneration culture.....
Deespite the cruelty involved in bullfighting, given the choice, I'd far prefer to be a Spanish bullfighting bull, living a pretty natural life, and dying a sadistic death, rather than a bull (or cow) being subjected to long-term imprisonment and a diet of artifical food and antibiotics on a Dutch factory farm. Eet smakelijk!
It's not our favourite blood sport...at least, not mine
It is a form of cruelty that kill the bull.
The Catalan Parliament has taken a major step forward by banning bullfighting ..
other parts of the world should take example and ban this cruelty.
Good! It's a no-win situation with the the bulls. It is no different than dog fights or cock fights. How can one have empathy or compassion for a human, if one enjoys watching the killing of an innocent animal as a form of amusement?
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