Alex Iszatt (Reporter)
A PETITION with 85,000 signatures has been delivered by hand to Madrid calling for the abolition of bull-fighting exhibition in Spain.
Silvia Barceló, head of the independent Partido Animalista (PACMA), said members are expressing their deep disappointment and discontent’ that Spain’s still allows for bulls to be ‘lynched and executed with spears for entertainment purposes’.
On Monday, two representatives of PACMA travelled to Brussels to hand in a copy of the petition to Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament.
They asked Mr Schulz to abolish bull-fighting, siting Article 13 of the European Union Treaty which ‘recognises animals as sensitive beings and not as mere objects’.
Not sure O.P. should head this article under “Sport”. Perhaps begin a new heading. Maybe “Evil Entertainment”?
And Rajoy’s government will do nothing, they like bull fighting (they put it back on TV) and they care little for the opinions of the Spanish people, till it comes round to election time.
stop it.!!
SHAME ON YOU – THIS IS NOT ENTERTAINMENT AND WE WILL NOT VISIT YOUR COUNTRY WHILE YOU TREAT ANIMALS SO CRUELLY –
“WE WILL NOT VISIT YOUR COUNTRY WHILE YOU TREAT ANIMALS SO CRUELLY -” Remind me – in which country was Baby P murdered. In which country was the mummified body of a starved baby discovered recently. In which country were Victoria Welker, Victoria Climbie, Maria Colwell, Tyra Henry, Jasmine Beckford, Kimberley Carlile, so cruelly treated ? I shall not be visiting your country while you treat children so cruelly. Are you personally doing anything about it ?
‘lynched and executed with spears for entertainment purposes’. Seen a lot of bullfights?
It’s odd, most British people won’t participate in Spain and its customs. They won’t get on the padrón or vote in local elections (‘it’s not our country’, they say, ‘we don’t know the issues’). They’ll watch Brit TV while moaning about bullfights on Spanish TV. They’ll watch Sky News, sport and weather. Tell me, who is the President of Andalucía? How many provinces are in the autonomy?
This all means they don’t have much interest or respect for their new, chosen, society.
But get them on to the subject of dogs, or bulls, or feral cats and there’s no stopping them…
Why not take a course in Spain, its culture, its language and its customs? It’s a fantastic place!
We will not visit your country while you treat Gibraltarians worse than you treat the bull’s and your own people.
YES LENOX….‘lynched and executed with spears for entertainment purposes’.
I presume from your condescending tone that you are not aware of the Spanish tradition “Toro de la vega”? If not I suggest you acquaint yourself with it here: “www.facebook.com/ShameOfSpain”
Who said that the people commenting on this page live in Spain? You do not have to live in a country to know that the torture of innocent animals for fun is plain wrong, and belongs in the history books. I and many others don’t care if it it tradition, this does not make it right.
In the last poll taken by Gallop 72% of Spanish people had no interest in bullfighting. It is kept alive by the likes of Rajoy and his ilk who receive millions of Euros in subsidies from every European partner.
I agree Spain is fantastic, and I do not agree with boycotting it, but they have some serious problems with peoples perception of their treatment of animals, yes including the 50,000 hunting dogs they discard of at the end of the hunting season
I have never been to a bullfight but I did watch part of one of Spanish TV a few years ago and despite enjoying the intial pomp and colour of the parade of matadors etc entering the ring, I found the actual bullfight barbaric and cruel. I would love to see bullfighting banned in Spain but I wouldn’t boycott a country that I’ve grown to love over the years. There are good and bad things about almost every country in the world so Spain and the UK are no the only places that have child and animal cruelty still happening.
Spain is a country of contrasts and its a shame that lots of expat Brits don’t integrate more into the culture and history and don’t take part in the life of their adopted country. Perhaps if the thousands of expats were participating more in there they lived and all adding their names to the petition then the government would have to take more notice and ban bullfighting.
Lennox :
1// you can not compare one sick person that kills a baby, with 100.000 “s of people enjoying the torture and death of a innocent animal.
2// i live here for 13 years now, and can say with a clear mind that i have never seen so much animal abuse as in Spain..
Setting cats on fire is even for a judge in court no crime…
3// not all Spaniards are like this..but compared to other nations,, you guys have a lot to work on, by education and moral conduct.
I ´m sorry that my countrymen are so insensitive to the suffering.
I think this is changing very quickly, and that is in part owed to the critics from people like you.
In two places called Coria and Torrelavega, in their festivals, bulls are mistreated, following some barbaric rituals of bullfighting.
I can not understand that this is done for fun.
However there is a game called “Suelta de Vaquillas” consisting in releasing bulls in a street bounded by fences, only in its extremes, with the purpose of the young people run ahead of them. This game is fine with me as long as the bulls are not mistreated.
I remember when I was younger I went to the “Suelta de Vaquillas” on occasion, and what amused me most was when I was hiding in a house running from the bull, and the bull came.
In Valencia was famous a bull named “Ratón”, sometimes shown a superior intelligence to that proper of a bull and killed one or two people, this circunstance made him a superstar bull. Attempts have been made to obtain clones of Ratón, but without success.
Toro de la Vega is not bullfighting. Nothing to do. Eating a Foxes Glacier Mint is not foxhunting. The bit about ‘lynching’ is silly – that what you do to dictators with a streetlamp and a bit of wire. There are far worse things in this life that La Corrida. Ease up and enjoy what you’ve got and leave other people to theirs…
Bull fighting cruel, barbaric? Most of us have no idea of the brutality and reality of our meat supplies. How old is a male cow before it is slaughtered for meat? What kind of life does it lead? Compare this hygienic daily slaughter with the life of a bull selected for the bullfight. Which is cruel? Which shows the animal the greatest respect?
Most people do not connect the neatly packed steak in the supermarket with the reality of killing the animal it come from! In the UK 2.6 million cattle were slaughtered in 2007 alone!
We have become divorced from the realities of life and death, living in our cities and eating our pre-packed meat.
Given the choice between being bred for food and being bred for the bull ring l know which I would choose.
85,000 is actually quite a good number. 0.18 % of the population. What Socialists would call an overwhelming majority.
Charles, i heared that one before….
Agree totally with you that the meat industrie is not as it should be, and changes need to be done like in N Zealand, where animals are treated better, although they become steak also.
But that has nothing to do with thousends of sick sadistic people, watching and cheering the slow torture of a bull.
That”s just sick.