Cataluña votes to ban bullfighting

Cataluña votes to ban bullfighting
larger | smaller
By h.b. - Jul 28, 2010 - 11:53 AM
There were nine abstentions in the vote in the Catalan Parliament on Wednesday morning

An anti-bullfighting protest - EFE archive

The Cataluña Parliament has voted to ban bullfighting in the region by 68 votes in favour, 55 against and with nine abstentions.

The result when declared just before a quarter to twelve on Wednesday, brought applause and despair across the different sides of the chamber.
The prohibition comes into effect on January 1 2012.

The vote come as a result of the People’s Legislative Initiative, promoted by the Plataforma Prou, which gathered the signatures of 180,000 citizens to force the popular vote.

Mireya Barbeito, President of the anti-bullfighting party, PACMA, has said that ‘Nobody would cause pain to a bull for fun, except a sadist’, while top bullfighter José Tomás, one of the few capable of filling the Monumental bullring in Barcelona, has said that the Catalan Parliament owes the bullfighters an apology. He has taken an active role in defence of the tradition.

The bullfighter, Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, has claimed, in the Diario Sur newspaper, that the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, declined to see a group of bullfighters and businessmen at the Moncloa Palace. Ordóñez complained that he has never seen his Prime Minister in a bullring.

The vote was in the hands of the PSC Catalan Socialists and the CiU group, both of whom were given a free vote. President of the Catalan Region, and leader of the PSC, José Montilla, who is originally from Córdoba, said after the vote that he had voted against the prohibition because he believed in freedom.

The Partido Popular deputies in the chamber all voted against the prohibition, considering that the nationalists have hijacked the debate considering the tradition to be ‘Spanish’ and not ‘Catalan. PP leader nationally, Mariano Rajoy, has commented that he is also against the prohibition.
‘In the same way that nobody can force you to go to the bullfight, nobody can stop you from going’, he said.

The ERC Nationalist deputies and the left wingers IU all voted in favour of the ban.

The figures show that the number of bullfights is in decline, and attendances are down, but still 28 bulls are killed every day in bullfights and in other fiestas which use the animals. Last year 10,247 animals were killed in 2,684 ‘celebrations’, 3,192 animals fewer than in 2008.
Defenders of the bullfight say the recent decline in numbers has been caused by the recession and that the numbers will recover.

There is only one active bullring in the region, the Monumental in Barcelona, and the owner announced ahead of the vote that he would be claiming compensation.

Cataluña is the second autonomous region of Spain to ban the ‘National Fiesta’ following a decision taken on the Canaries in 1991.

Shortly after the vote the Partido Popular announced that they would be placing a law in Congress in Madrid with the intention of annulling the prohibition. Party sources said it would be placed by their leader in Cataluña, Alicia Sánchez Camacho.

Congratulations Cataluña - Our Editorial - here

Click here for related stories

mobile |

email this article | print

printer friendly page

More Spain News : Cataluña

Readers' comments:
Please keep to the subject. Opinions published here are of our visitors, not the Typically Spanish team. Comments which go against Spanish laws or which are libellous are not allowed. We reserve the right to delete any comment we wish. Placing a comment indicates you have read our terms and conditions and privacy policy.

Por favor, céntrate en el tema. Son las opiniones de los internautas, y no las de Typically Spanish. No está permitido verter comentarios contrarios a las leyes españolas o injuriantes. Reservado el derecho a eliminar los comentarios que consideremos fuera de tema. Escribir un comentario indica que has leído nuestros condiciones de uso y politica de privacidad.