New campaign launched in Madrid to ban bullfighting

An animal rights group in Spain yesterday launched a bold move to ban bullfighting in the Madrid region, where the traditional spectacle is seen as part of its cultural heritage.

El Refugio (The Shelter) said it is seeking 50,000 signatures on a petition to demand the Parliament in the Madrid region debate a ban on the practice, which it condemns as torture.

The group was inspired by a similar campaign in the northeastern region of Catalonia, in which activists collected 180,000 signatures on a petition to outlaw bullfighting there.

That led the Catalan Parliament to launch several weeks of hearings earlier this month on a motion to ban the spectacle.

El Refugio volunteers began collecting signatures outside Madrid's main bull-ring of Las Ventas yesterday.

A minimum of 50,000 signatures is necessary to convince the regional parliament in Madrid to debate a ban. But it appears to have little chance of success as the Madrid region has strong tradition of bullfighting.

On March 5, the head of the regional government, Esperanza Aguirre, announced she planned to officially declare bullfighting part of the region's cultural heritage, which would give it some legal protection.

This has not deterred El Refugio.

"There are people in the Madrid region, in the regional government, who insist on declaring bullfights part of the cultural heritage," the head of El Refugio, Naucho Paunero, said. "But we are hundreds of thousands of Madrid residents who are against bullfights."

Several animal rights groups have organised an anti-bullfighting demonstration for Sunday in Madrid.

If the motion in Catalonia is approved it would become the first region in Spain, outside of the Canary Islands, to ban the practice.

The wealthy region has led opposition to bullfighting, in part due to a desire among some Catalans to strike a separate identity from the rest of Spain.

But polls show rising disinterest in bullfighting throughout Spain, especially among the young, although arenas are regularly filled to capacity for the spectacle, which ends with the death of the bull from a well-placed sword.