Thousands rally in Valencia to support bullfighting, overshadowing protests by animal rights activists

Protesters rally Saturday March 12 in Valencia against bullfighting during annual 'Fallas' festival. Photo: El País
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• Animal rights groups say 100 bulls to be killed during 2016 ‘Fallas’ festival •

Animal-rights activists staged protests on Saturday and Sunday in Valencia over the killing of 100 animals in bullfights scheduled during the city’s annual month-long “Fallas” festival, but were no match for more than 12,000 supporters who rallied Sunday in the Valencian capital to defend bullfighting as part of Spanish culture.

On Saturday, several hundred people joined a protest organized by the Partido Animalists (PACMA) calling for Fallas festivals without animal bloodshed and on Sunday partially nude protesters from Anima Naturalis held signs in front of Valencia’s city hall in a demonstration calling for the abolition of bullfighting and for bloodless Fallas celebrations.

But, far overshadowing the turnout of the anti-bullfighting protests was a well-organized march and rally of more than 12,000 bullfighting supporters, including a number of Spain’s most well-known bullfighters and the president of the conservative Partido Popular (PP) for the Valencia region, who called for an end to the growing wave of regional and local legislation banning or restricting bullfighting, bull-running and bull-baiting festivals across Spain.

► Read More in Spanish at Levant-emv and El País …

► Read More in English at The Guardian …

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