• March from Puerta del Sol to Congress is largest anti-bullfighting protest yet
• Animal-rights party PACMA pledges to fight until cruelty to bulls finally ended
Thousands of Spaniards opposed to bullfighting, bull-running and bull-baiting festivals in Spain marched through Madrid on Saturday from Puerta del Sol to the Congress of Deputies in response to a call for an all-out protest by animal-rights party PACMA (Animalist Party Against Mistreatment of Animals) against all events involving cruelty to animals for entertainment purposes.
Using the march to call for the eventual abolition of all such events, PACMA vowed to repeat the march each year until festivals in which cruelty to bulls is prevalent are totally banned in Spain. PACMA cited as a recent victory in its anti-bullfighting campaign the legal ban announced by authorities in Castilla-León of the Toro de la Vega festival in Tordesillas, in which each year a bull chased down by crowds until exhaustion was ultimately speared to death by local men.
PACMA won 284,848 votes for 1.19% of total Congressional vote in 26th June general election, but fell short of the number of votes needed to win a seat in the lower house of Spain’s parliament. Speaking to protesters on Saturday, President Sylvia Barqueros promised that the party would continue to campaign to abolish all events involving cruelty toward bulls and other animals across Spain and pledged that once it reached Congress it would introduce and work for the passage of legislation to that end.
► Read More in Spanish at El País and El Mundo …
► Read More in English at AFP via The Guardian …
