tagged w/ Ban Bullfighting
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Animal Equality...
International Organization for the Abolition of Animal Slavery
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31 December 2011
Make it your New Year's resolution to Help Animals!
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Each year Animal Equality carries out many vegan outreach activities and investigations in defence of animals. With this work we aim to touch peoples’ hearts, in the hope that they will discover a lost empathy towards non-human animals. We aim to show them that it is easy to create a world without animal exploitation.
Much impassioned work was carried out during 2011, and it would not have been possible without the dedication of new volunteers and supporters just like you.
Read ahead to see how we carried out activism for animal rights in the UK and elsewhere in Europe throughout the year.
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2011: a year growing up!
We believe that human education is the first step to equality, and a truly kind world. During 2011, we carried out dozens of events and info-stalls in the UK.
Here are some examples of our work:
• In the UK alone, during our Demonstrations promoting veganism and free vegan food giveaways, we handed out 12,000 vegan leaflets.
• We launched a brand new website called ChooseVeganism.org, Thanks to the website’s new video, 'A message of respect', we received more than 11,000 visitors in a few days.
• Hundreds of vegan outreach events were carried out in Spain, Poland, UK and Venezuela, more four undercover investigations.
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Our dedication did not stop in these countries; in India we started to work to convince the Indian Government to prevent elephant deaths on railway tracks.
Another important event during 2011, was the creation of a new branch of Animal Equality in Italy, based in Rome!
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International Animal Rights Day 2011:
A fantastic celebration of the International Animal Rights Day 2011, marked this year as being such a success in terms of recruiting new activists and achieving excellent worldwide media coverage on our activities. A brief summary of our events to mark this important day are as follows:
• LONDON (UK): Crime scenes featuring the outlines of the victims of the speciesism calling on passers-by to adopt a vegan lifestyle.
Photo gallery: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxhi5Na
• MADRID (Spain): 400 activists gathered to show 400 corpses of dead animals, and demand justice for the billions of animals who continue to die each year as victims of speciesism.
Photo gallery: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxgLviM
• ROME (Italy): For six hours, the Pincio's square was covered with 100 crosses, each one accompanied by a photo of an animal who had been exploited and/or killed for human consumption.
Photo gallery: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxhWfTD
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Investigations:
Behind the closed doors of the animal exploitation centers, Animal Equality's Investigation Team with hidden cameras exposed the reality and misery of animals' lives. With our investigation work, we aim to change society into one that respects animals by promoting a vegan lifestyle.
Some examples of our investigation work are as follows:
• We recording of the brutal killing of minks on one of the biggest fur farms in Spain.
• We carried out a unique and intensive undercover investigation into the most important zoos in Spain.
- Visit the website: Spanishzoos.org
• We infiltrated Tordesillas, one of the biggest bullfighting traditions in Spain.
• We documented the gruesome ritual slaughter of 6.000 lambs for the ‘Feast of Sacrifice’ in Melilla, Spain.
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.Animal Equality...
International Organization for the Abolition of Animal Slavery... more
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CNN...
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August 9th, 2011
08:00 AM ET
Should bullfighting be banned?
By Stephanie Garlow, GlobalPost
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First Catalonia outlawed bullfighting, which the Economist likened it to a German state banning wurst or a French region condemning berets.
Now Peru's minister of culture has said the sport is "terrible" and that it causes excessive suffering for the animals.
So is bullfighting on the way out? Is it a "tradition of tragedy," as PETA claims, that kills 250,000 bulls annually?
Activists who gathered in Lima last week to protest the mistreatment of bulls would seem to agree. "Bullfighting promotes violence, torture and cruelty to animals for no reason," William Soberon, of the Anti-Bullfighting Front of Peru, told La Republica. "We're not in the colonial era."
Peru's newly appointed minister of culture, Susana Baca, said she felt sorry for the animals and that she cried when she once attended a cockfight. "I've never been to a bullfight but from the little I've seen in the media, I know it's terrible and I had to close my eyes," she said on the program "Buenos Dias, Peru."
But protests against bullfighting are nothing new in Peru. And comments by Baca that she would analyze the practice during her tenure quickly sparked controversy.
Bullfighter Fernando Roca Rey told La Republica that bullfighting should be seen as a cultural event and that "the minister can give her opinion, but that cannot be applied to the whole country." Bullfighting celebrations have been held in Peru since 1766 and the Plaza de Toros de Acho bullring is the oldest in the Americas and second-oldest in the world, reports AFP.
And the Spanish government recently dealt a blow to efforts to outlaw the sport when it ruled that bullfighting is an "artistic discipline and cultural product." The country's Ministry of Culture will now be responsible for the "development and protection" of bullfighting, a move that supporters hope is a step toward protecting the tradition from further regional bans.
Bullfighting is also practiced in Portugal and the south of France and is widespread in Latin America. Mexico City's Plaza Mexico arena is the biggest in the world with seats for up to 55,000.
And while public opinion might be swinging away from bullfighting — a poll last year for El Pais found 60 percent of Spaniards did not enjoy bullfighting — the sport still has big-name supporters. Peruvian novelist and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa campaigned to convince UNESCO to classify bullfighting as part of Spain's national heritage.
And in novelist Ernest Hemingway, the sport found one of its most enduring voices of support. The art of the bullfighting, Hemingway wrote in "Death in the Afternoon," "is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor."
.CNN...
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August 9th, 2011
08:00 AM ET
Should bullfighting be banned?... more
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Oh man, this is brutal. Didn't know they have bullfights in China. The major difference is that there the bulls do the fighting, though also one man gets mangled by a bull. The clip comes complete with spanish music (why? LOL) and it's original title was "Yunnan, Guizhou, Super Cow King of life and death fight scene".Oh man, this is brutal. Didn't know they have bullfights in China. The major... more
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Catalonia votes to ban bullfighting
Animal rights campaigners celebrate as Spain's most emblematic sport is banned by Catalan parliament
* Giles Tremlett
o Giles Tremlett in Madrid
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 July 2010 19.56 BST
Bullfight: Matador performs a pass on a bull Bullfighting will cease in the Catalan region by the end of 2011. Photograph: Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters
Its orange sands have witnessed both delight and death. Generations of matadors strutted their way across Barcelona's Monumental bullring, drawing roars of approval from the crowds as they tormented the hulking bulls with their scarlet capes before killing them with a sword-thrust between the shoulder blades.
But now bullfighting is to be banned from Barcelona and the rest of the north-eastern region of Catalonia after the local parliament today dealt a blow to Spain's most emblematic pastime and unleashed a political battle over what some see as a threatened cultural treasure.
Deputies voted by 68 to 55 in favour of a people's petition calling on the bullfight to be banished from a region that once played host to some of the world's greatest fights. The last matador in Catalan history will sink his sword into the last half-tonne fighting bull at the end of next year, with the ban starting in 2012.
"It is the worst attack on culture since our transition to democracy," said the Catalan poet Pere Gimferrer.
While some mourned the loss of a cultural jewel, the vote was hailed by animals rights campaigners worldwide. Ricky Gervais and Pamela Anderson were among the 140,000 who signed an international petition to the Catalan parliament.
"It sickens me to know that people are still paying money to see an animal suffering in such a horrific way," Gervais said before the vote. About 13,500 fighting bulls die in Spain every year – many in bullfights funded by local authorities who are estimated to pay out up to €550m (£457m) in subsidies.
In Spain, critics pointed to dark, if barely-disguised, political motives. Bullfight fans claimed many Catalan nationalist deputies had voted out of spite, because the fighting bull is an emblem of Spain – where it is known as the "national fiesta" – rather than of Catalonia.
The local El Periódico newspaper reported that several nationalist deputies had decided to back the ban only after Spain's constitutional court struck down parts of the region's 2006 autonomy charter earlier this month. At least 430,000 people, or 6% of all Catalans, protested on 10 July in Barcelona against the court's decision ,which declared Catalonia was not legally a nation.
Just as Britain's foxhunting ban mixed animal rights with class politics, so the bullfight ban brought together animal welfare and Catalan identity politics, local commentators agreed. "Some of our people will back the ban on the basis that if they are going to sink our charter, we will sink their bulls," a regional deputy from the Convergence and Union nationalist coalition told El Periódico.
Animal rights campaigners were upset that identity politics had been brought to play. "The issue is a moral one, not a nationalist one," said Dr Salvador Giner, head of the Catalan Studies Institute in Barcelona. "Bear-baiting was suppressed long ago and this is the same logic. Are we a modern nation, or are we going back to the middle ages?"
Dr Giner said the bullfight had a long history in Catalonia. "But it is a barbarous tradition." He also denounced those who voted against bullfighting but protected the correbous, a form of bull-taunting popular in village fiestas in southern Catalonia. "That should be banned as well, even if politicians lose votes. That would be consistent."
In recent years the matador José Tomás – beloved of many Spanish leftwing intellectuals and artists – had brought fresh life to the Monumental bullring but in general the bullfight has been in decline in Catalonia for decades. There is only one major ring functioning in Barcelona, with just 15 fights a year. The city's other emblematic bullring, Las Arenas, is being turned into a shopping arcade, following a redesign by Britain's Lord Rogers.
"There was never a strong tradition of bullfighting there anyway, they do not breed bulls," said Frank Evans, the Salford-born veteran British bullfighter. "It is like Devon staging Rugby League games."
Bullfight campaigners said the ban would cost €300m in lost revenues, and argue that the fight was an art form, rather than a cruel bloodsport.
"This is dictatorship," the Catalan bullfighter Serafín Marín said. "It is not a cruel show. It is a show that creates art: where you get feelings and a fight between a bull and person, where the person or the bull can lose their life."
Others saw a sinister attack on people's freedom to choose their own pastimes. "It is an attack on liberty," said Fernando Masedo, president of the International Federation of Bullfighting Schools, where children and youths learn how to face an angry bull. "People are free to go or not go to the bullring."
A petition calling for the ban to be extended to the capital of Madrid, home to the world's most famous bull-ring, Las Ventas, has 50,000 signatures. But there is little prospect of success.
The regional government, like that of Valencia, has declared the bull-fight to be a part of its "protected cultural patrimony".Catalonia votes to ban bullfighting
Animal rights campaigners celebrate as... more
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Bid to ban bullfighting in Barcelona goes before regional parliament
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/27/spain.barcelona.bullfight.ban/index.html?hpt=C2
Bid to ban bullfighting in Barcelona goes before regional parliament
By Al Goodman, CNN Madrid Bureau Chief
July 27, 2010 6:44 p.m. EDT
Spain's bullfighting debate
Barcelona, Spain (CNN) -- The deep-rooted Spanish tradition of bullfighting is under fire in Barcelona and its region of Catalonia, where the regional parliament will vote on Wednesday whether to ban the fights.
If approved, Catalonia would become the first region in mainland Spain to outlaw bullfighting, and some see it as a slap in the face to the rest of the country.
Enrique Guillen, 24, laments that he might be the last Barcelona-born bullfighter to take the "alternativa," or ceremonial fight in the ring against the biggest bulls to become a full-fledged matador, which he did last year at Barcelona's sole remaining bullring, the Monumental.
Guillen's father worked at the bullring, opening the doors for bulls to charge in to face matadors and their death.
"My father brought me to see the bullfights when I still had a pacifier," Guillen said. "It would be frustrating not to be able to give to my children what my parents gave to me."
But activist Aida Gascon, of the Anti-Bullfighting Party, known as PACMA, looks beyond the tradition and sees animal cruelty.
She says she's attended just one bullfight in her life, and that was only to get a sense of the bull's suffering, which she depicted in a painting that hangs in her living room.
"Bullfighting is part of Spanish culture," Gascon said. "But that should change. Many traditions disappear as the society advances."
The number of bullfights across Spain has dropped by one-third in recent years, due mostly to budget constraints of local governments, which often fund the spectacles.
In Catalonia, there are now just over a dozen fights a year and the Monumental bullring in Barcelona is about the only place in the region that still holds fights.
But Luis Corrales and his pro-bullfight group, known as PPDF, released a study predicting big economic losses for Catalonia if bullfighting is banned. This would mainly result, he says, because the Catalan government would have to pay damages to the bullfighting industry, which holds long-term operating licenses.
"When the Catalan government and the opposition are working hard to trim the budget, how could they justify making big indemnity payments to the bullfighting industry, when it's not necessary," Corrales said.
But critics disagree, saying the economic impact would be minimal, given the small number of fights still held in Catalonia.
Either way, the Catalan parliament bullfight vote is being watched not only in Spain, but abroad, where many have a fascination with bullfighting.
The proposal to ban bullfighting started as a popular initiative in Catalonia and was accepted for consideration by parliament last year by a slim margin of votes. Since then, there has been an ever-intensifying debate, with bullfighting proponents and opponents gathering support from across Spain, even from abroad.
Most analysts predict that the vote on Wednesday will be very close. The two largest parties in parliament, the ruling Socialists and the opposition Catalan nationalists, or CiU, have given their members of parliament freedom to vote their conscience.
Some smaller parties on the left are expected to vote for the ban while the conservative Popular Party is expected to support continuing the tradition.
The ban, if approved, would take effect in January 2012 and would not end bullfighting in the rest of Spain. It still has a strong following in Madrid and in the south around Seville.
Spain's Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean already does not allow bullfighting, but a ban in Catalonia would be considered a bigger blow to the tradition.
Some analysts say that Catalan nationalism, including the desire by some in the Barcelona area for independence from Spain, also is playing a role in the vote, as well as the upcoming regional elections for parliament later this year.
But the main bullfighting proponents and opponents say the root issue is a clear line in the sand: tradition vs. protection of animals.
The Catalan parliament vote is expected by 1 p.m. (7 a.m. ET) Wednesday.Bid to ban bullfighting in Barcelona goes before regional parliament... more
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Opponents of bullfighting call it barbaric. Proponents defend it on grounds of tradition, and they suspect their rivals have an ulterior motive: to assert regional identity and separatism.
By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times
June 17, 2010 | 2:08 p.m.
Reporting from Barcelona, Spain —
Fans laid on a hero's welcome when Jose Tomas made a triumphal return to professional bullfighting in Barcelona three years ago, ending a much-lamented retirement.
But when Tomas arrives here next month for another comeback of sorts — one of his first engagements since being badly gored in Mexico in April — the celebrated matador could find himself in quite a different position: as an outlaw.
Regional lawmakers are expected to decide soon whether to abolish bullfighting once and for all here in Catalonia. Signs indicate they'll vote yes, which would make this northeastern coastal region the first on the Spanish mainland to approve such a ban.
It's about time, backers say, that Catalonia got rid of a cruel and bloody sport that essentially makes a virtue of the torture and killing of a captive animal.
But opponents of the ban suspect the stated concern for animal welfare is a smokescreen for a more political aim: thumbing a nose at the rest of Spain, in an assertion of Catalonian identity and nationalist aspiration.
The debate has stoked regional tensions in a country where such divisions can be a combustible mix, occasionally transmuting into separatist violence — for example, in the Basque area. Although Catalonia doesn't have the same history of violent separatism, plenty of people here see themselves as different from "the Spanish" and yearn for independence.
The anti-bullfighting campaign has sparked an angry backlash in Madrid, Valencia and Murcia, whose governments have moved to declare the sport a cultural landmark, a status that could give organizers tax breaks and other special protections.
"Bullfighting was a source of inspiration for Goya, Picasso, Garcia Lorca, Hemingway and Orson Welles," Esperanza Aguirre, the head of Madrid's regional government, told reporters recently, posing with a pink matador's cape. "It's an art that has been in our culture for as long as we can remember."
Bullfight reviews routinely turn up on the arts pages of Spanish newspapers, and when a dashing torero like Tomas steps into the arena, exhibiting a daredevil yet classical style seldom seen anymore, aficionados speak in hushed tones about a mystical experience.
Animal rights activists have little patience for talk of culture and tradition. To them, the dashing gold matador outfits and the romantic aura built up around bullfighting are merely ways of dressing up ritualized cruelty.
"We think it's a shame for a country to have a symbol like that," said Manel Macia Gallemi of the organization Prou ("Enough" in Catalan), which has led the drive for a ban. "Spanish traditional culture has flamenco and other things you don't have to be ashamed of."
Macia Gallemi noted that opposition to bullfighting isn't just a Catalonian phenomenon. In Madrid, a bullfighting protest in March drew thousands of demonstrators toting placards with slogans such as "Torture is not culture."
And plenty of Catalonians themselves have been enthusiastic followers of bullfighting.
"It's true, in the past Catalonia liked bullfighting more than now. My grandfather was an example," Macia Gallemi said. "It was a kind of popular entertainment, because they had no other distractions."
But society and notions of ethical treatment of animals have moved on, and bullfighting should follow activities such as bear-baiting to the dustbin of history, activists say.
Their petition to ban the sport drew 180,000 signatures. That was three times more than the number necessary to land the petition in the Catalonian regional assembly, forcing lawmakers to vote on whether to initiate legislation.
The issue was so sensitive that for the first time in memory, lawmaker David Perez said, the chamber turned off the electronic voting board so that "no one would feel scared."
Perez, a member of the left-leaning Socialist Party, opposes abolition.
"It's unfair to ban everything that you personally don't like," he said.
Plus, the proposal to end bullfighting ignores other traditions that could also be deemed cruel, including the practice during some rural festivals of attaching flaming torches to bulls' horns.
To Perez, that silence is proof of inconsistency, and an ulterior motive.
"It wasn't a question of animal suffering or animal abuse. It was a question of Catalan identity," he said.
In fact, the real enemy of bullfighting may not be animal rights activists or Catalonian nationalists but time. Except for the adoring crowds that Tomas, the star matador, can draw, the audience for bullfights has been steadily dwindling. Barcelona's main bullring, the Plaza Monumental, often struggles to fill even half its seats.
The coup de grace for bullfighting may therefore end up being delivered not by outright hostility but, instead, by casual indifference.Opponents of bullfighting call it barbaric. Proponents defend it on grounds of... more
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