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PETA.
Activists From Around the World Demand an End to Bloody Bullfights
Pamplona,
Spain – Ahead of the Running of the Bulls at the San Fermín festival,
nearly 100 PETA and Anima Naturalis supporters gathered in the centre of
Pamplona today
wearing little more than fake bull horns and black underwear with the
words "Stop Bullfights" painted on their bodies. The chanting protesters
simultaneously broke "banderillas" containing red powdered paint above their heads, covering themselves and filling the air around them with "blood".
Photos of the event are available here, here, here and here, and video footage is available here. More photos are available upon request.
"Animals
should be respected and protected, not chased by a crowd into an arena
to be tormented, speared, and stabbed," says PETA Director Elisa Allen.
"Bullfighting has no place in a civilised society. PETA is calling on
kind people around the world to reject this bloody spectacle, and we're
urging Pamplona to join the more than 100 Spanish cities and towns that
have banned it."
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to use for entertainment" – notes that prior
to the Running of the Bulls, electric prods and sharp sticks are often
used to torment the bulls. The animals then slip and slide along the
narrow streets, pursued by hundreds of people, before ending up in the
bullring. There, as many as eight men taunt, beat, and stab a single bull with daggers and harpoon-like banderillas until
he becomes weakened from blood loss. Then the matador stabs the
exhausted bull with a sword, and an executioner cuts the animal's spinal
cord. Many bulls drown in their own blood when the matadors' aim is
inaccurate and the sword pierces the lungs instead of the heart. Often,
the animals are paralysed but still conscious as they are chained and
dragged out of the arena.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.
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