Pro-bull running protest in Tarragona province
Thursday, April 23, 2015 @ 11:14 AM
PROTEST marches have seen over 10,000 people from Catalunya and parts of Valencia and Aragón this week in support of bull-running and non-fatal bull-fights gathering in the town of Amposta (Tarragona province).
The biggest demonstration the province has ever seen, the pro-bull crowds included livestock farmers who say 'someone sitting in an office in Barcelona' is 'encroaching on the freedom of a community'.
Catalunya and the Canary Islands are the only regions in Spain where bull-related activities are banned.
Although bull-fights are less common these days, bulls set loose in the streets under controlled conditions during fiestas are still part of the furniture.
In some cases, fireworks are tied to their horns or they are released into a ring opening out onto the sea so that members of the audience can join them and 'wind them up' in an attempt to get them to jump into the water.
A small number of cases of bulls drowning have led animal support groups to heighten their campaigning efforts, although in practice it tends to be people rather than bovines who end up in the sea, and spectator injury at bull-running events is very frequent.
One woman protesting in Amposta says many people who are against bull-running 'compare it to bull-fights' and to the bloodthirsty Toro de la Vega in Valladolid where bulls are surrounded by huge crowds of people attempting to spear them from the sidelines.
"In these cases, which happen outside Catalunya, they are indeed cruel because the bulls end up being tortured and killed," the protester says.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com