Spanish region approves preliminary ban on bullfights (Roundup)

Dec 18, 2009, 10:36 GMT

Barcelona - The parliament of the wealthy north-eastern Spanish region of Catalonia on Friday gave preliminary approval to a ground-breaking ban on Spain's bullfighting tradition in the region.

The ban was approved with a vote of 67 against 59 while five of the regional legislators abstained.

The ban will now enter into the legislative process and could undergo modifications before it is put before parliament in its final form.

If a total ban goes through, Catalonia will become the second Spanish region to outlaw bullfights after the Canary Islands did so in 1991.

The anti-bullfighting platform Prou collected 180,000 signatures to back its legal initiative, nearly four times as many as would have been needed to bring it before parliament.

Bullfighting opponents slammed Spain's 'national fiesta' as 'cowardly' while some legislators argued that its fans had the right to see bullfights even if they were a minority in the region.

'Making animals suffer for fun' did not fit in with 'the new values of the society of the 21st century,' Prou representative Anna Mola argued during the debate preceding the vote.

'Bulls cannot defend themselves,' Mola stressed.

Socialist legislator David Perez, who opposed the ban, said freedom of thought was one of the hallmarks of Catalonia.

Perez also criticized those who saw bullfights as representing Spanishness in the region with separatist currents.

'Those who think we will be less Spanish if we prohibit bullfights are mistaken,' he argued.

The vote launched a debate about bullfighting in Spain where opinion polls show its popularity to have declined.

Only 19 per cent of Spaniards younger than 24 years take an interest in the spectacle, according to a 2006 poll.

Criticism of bullfights is strongest in Catalonia, a region of 7 million residents, where the regional capital Barcelona and dozens of other municipalities have declared their opposition to the spectacle.

Two of Barcelona's three bullrings have been closed, though the last remaining one still draws crowds for top bullfighters.

Opponents of bullfighting see it as a form of animal torture during which bullfighting assistants stick long darts into the animal's neck to build up its fury.

In the final 'moment of truth,' the matador is expected to kill the bull with a single thrust of his sword into the back of its neck, but many bullfighters are not that skillful and wound the animal several times.

Those defending bullfights see it as an ancient and important part of Spanish culture, which has inspired artists like the painter Pablo Picasso and the US writer Ernest Hemingway.

A ban on corridas would violate the basic freedoms of bullfighting fans, the Catalan bullfighting lobby said, arguing that the tradition should die a natural death if it was no longer popular.

The Canary Islands banned bullfights in 1991. The law in question did not target bullfights, which were no longer taking place on the islands, but cockfights which remained popular there.