Thanks for all your support

Posted on 25 January, 2013 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 0

As most of you have already noticed, Bye-Bye Bullfighting, the campaign to end bullfighting worldwide, has ended. We didn’t end bullfighting, sad but true. But we have done our bit to support the anti-bullfighting movement and hopefully weakened the arguments of the bullfighting industry and those who relish the cruel pastime.

Thank you very much for all your support. The site will remain for the time being, although we won’t update it. If anyone is interested in continuing the work, do get in touch: byebyebullfighting@gmail.com

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Hey, you! Nothing happening here for a while.

Posted on 16 November, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 0

Sorry, guys. I have been busy with a new anti-bullfighting project. A friend ist publishing a book and I have helped her translating documents. I also set up a blog for the book presentation. More soon, watch this space.

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Vote now for anti bullfighting video

Posted on 21 October, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 0

 

This work by Jose Manuel Silvestre is competing in the ‘Red Giant Video Contest’. Vote now.

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Anti-Bullfighting campaigner acquitted

Posted on 20 October, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 0

Picnic y más activismo después de la concentración antitaurina de Logroño

Anti-Bullfighting activist David Herrero of the Spanish animal rights organisation Fundacion Equanimal has been acquitted of causing a public order offence and had his 3,000 Euros fine nullified.

In May 2008 Herrero and five other activists had held a peaceful protest inside Las Ventas arena promoting the abolition of bullfighting. They climbed the fence surrounding the arena and assembled in the centre, where the unfolded banners with anti-bullfighting slogans. Within seconds staff removed the banners and security and police dragged the activists out of the arena.

Madrid Council fined each activist for an apparent public order offense and for disrupting the event.

The court has now acquitted Herrero on the grounds that the event had not been interrupted since the activists entered the arena in the interval between the second and the third fight. Judges also revoked the fine.

Fundacion Equanimal has welcomed the judgement, but regrets that the fine for two other activists was upheld, while another was reduced to 300 Euros.

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New bullfighting video out – is it pro or anti?

Posted on 5 October, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 1

 

To be frank, I am not sure what this video means.

I do know that Alt J is in line for the Mercury Prize for their album An Awesome Wave.

According to a BBB supporter, who emailed me about the video, they are getting heavily played on the airwaves in the UK and are seen as one of the most important new bands. He guessed that the song uses bullfighting as an analogy for using heroin to compensate for the end of a relationship. But does it glorify the blood sport?

Or does it criticise or even condemn it?

You can see quite a bit of blood, something you would not expect in a pro bullfighting video. But then, it’s bizarre and does definitely not have a straight forward message, something you would expect to see in an anti-bullfighting video.

Can you help? Please comment on this post and share your thoughts.

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Grotesque decision to exclude bullfighting from VAT rise

Posted on 28 September, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 4

Thousands have protested in Spain’s capital Madrid against the €18bn cuts the Rajoy government has recently announced. The majority of cuts will be made in the education and health systems.

Additionally, as SOS Galgos reports, VAT for culture events such as theatre or cinema and sport events, notably Spain’s favourite national past time football, is up from eight to 21 percent. Bullfighting tickets, however, are exempt from that rise – despite the fact that the government defined  the spectacle as a cultural product.

Florian Leppla, founder of Bye-Bye Bullfighting, the campaign to end bullfighting worldwide said:

“The government’s decision is completely out of  touch with reality. Why subsidise bullfighting tickets? People want jobs and education for their children. They don’t want their tax money being used to finance a dying industry.

“Allowing a cruel sport to exist is bad enough. Subsidising it is worse. But subsidising it while the unemployment across the country hits 24 percent, and another quarter of the population is at risk of poverty or social exclusion is grotesque.”

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More death in the afternoon: Killing continues in Southern France thanks to “uninterrupted tradition”

Posted on 25 September, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 0

So again, it’s tradition. As long as people in the south of France have always, for some 150 years anyway, chased, maimed, and eventually stabbed to death, defenceless creatures, then it is fine for them to continue.

I bet you none of these blood thirsty aficionados who watched Jose Tomas’ killing in Nimes the other day would harm a dog, cat or cow. But bulls make all the difference?

We live in the 21st century and it is not right for us to mistreat animals. In fact, if found guilty, you can be fined 30K Euro or be imprisoned for up to two years under the French Penal Code.

Yet this does not count in Southern France, namely in Provence and the French Basque Country, where the killing tradition is alive. According to the court anyway.

So, to sum up, in 90 percent of the country the law applies and in the remaining 10 percent it does not.

Let us hope that the law suite at the European Court of Human Rights, CRAC and DDA are considering, is successful.

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French court rejects bullfighting ban

Posted on 25 September, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 1

2011_06_11_féria Nîmes_0092Decision No. 2012-271 QPC of the Constitutional Council of the French Republic was clear:

Article 1er.- La première phrase du septième alinéa de l’article 521-1 du code pénal est conforme à la Constitution.

(The first sentence of the seventh paragraph of Article 521-1 of the Criminal Code is consistent with the Constitution.)

Generally bullfighting is not allowed under the penal code, yet there is an exception if ‘uninterrupted local tradition’ can be shown. EU legislation has a similar wording.

CRAC (Comité Radicalement Anti Corrida) and DDA (Défense des animaux) in the French case argued that the provisions of the seventh paragraph infringed the principle of equality before the law. The Constitutional Council has rejected this claim and found the challenged provisions in accordance with the Constitution.

You can read the full text of the court’s decision here. The press release is available here.

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Occupy Tordesillas Appeal

Posted on 10 September, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 3

Posting an appeal from Ocupa Tordesillas.

“We are calling upon all citizens against torture and murder to OCCUPY TORDESILLAS the next September 11 in order to prevent it from becoming, yet again, the shame of Spain. El Toro de La Vega tournament is a National disgrace.

JALX12X01-IGUALDAD ANIMAL-TORDESILLAS-2010-09-14_DSF5774

No more suffering! Join the protest Tuesday, 11 September. Occupy Tordesillas!

The pleas and indignation of activists over the years have been ignored. We now demand that the city of Tordesillas listen to the cries of animal suffering, taking heed of those who would defend the animals.

Government complicity has allowed the murderers of Tordesillas to act with blatant impunity.

The time to change is NOW, and to end this we propose:

The massive mobilization of activists from all parts of Spain to Tordesillas. There must be massive representation on September 11th 2012, occupying the route of the Bull (Volante) and the esplanade where they intend to assassinate Volante in El Toro de la Vega tournament. Activists must resist fearlessly, insisting that the tournament is cancelled for the first time – and permanently.

This is now the time to act, make perfectly clear to those who govern that we are not going to allow further barbarity and atrocites.

We therefore call on the entire movement in defence of animals in Spain, all organizations, groups and anyone who wants to join on September 11, 2012 to occupy Tordesillas – with the intention to remain on site until the tournament is cancelled.

NOW IS THE TIME TO SHOW STRENGTH, DETERMINATION AND UNITY – FOR THE ANIMALS!!

True justice is on our side and if we remain strong and determinedwe will write a page in the history of the AR Movement in Spain.

Throughout the Country, Liberators will subsequently make their voices heard, demanding the abolition of El the Toro de La Vega tournament and continuing until the abolition of bullfighting throughout the national territory is achieved.

Tordesillas will be the starting point and civil disobedience our best weapon! SOLIDARITY!”

Facebook Page
Email accionparalaliberacion@riseup.net

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Scandalous decision by state TV means that Spanish tax payers have to pay for cruelty yet again

Posted on 9 September, 2012 by Florian Leppla | Permalink 2

 

Unfortunately we have to see these pictures again on Spanish state television. And pay for it. Bravo, RTVE. My only comfort is that I don’t pay taxes in Spain.

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RTVE management was keen to assure viewers that bullfighting would not play a major role in future.

“This will be the first of a short but symbolic series of bullfights … which Spain’s public television channel plans to programme”.

This is of course nonsense. “A symbolic series”? Meaning that they still think bullfighting isn’t great, but they have to show it for political reasons?

Ah, no. It’as for the greater good of all citizens:

“Television Espanola believes that a festival of this quality should be made available to all Spanish fans”.

That is the quality of the kills? The maiming? “Spanish fans” have pay TV or can go the arena. But don’t use tax money. The large majority of Spaniards is against bullfighting. And subsidising it.

The scandal is that the taxpayer has to finance cruelty

And what about all taxpayers financing the screening through the license fee? RTVE has an annual budget of 1.2bn Euros.

In a country with a staggering unemployment rate of 25 percent, plus every second youth is out of work, it is scandalous that the government pays millions to support the bullfighting industry.

It has to be said that the broadcast of Wednesday’s bullfight was mainly possible because the organisers waived their fees. “Star” matador El Juli even paid for busses for aficionados to be carried to Valladolid from across the country.

How desperate can you be if you have to pay people to come to your “show”. On a more sober level, how can this be sustainable?

A political decision

Back in 2006 when RTVE announced to cease broadcasting it was a political statement: ‘We oppose, or at least do not approve of, bullfighting.’ And it is a political statement now: ‘Due to the change in government, we now do approve of bullfighting and think it is a Spanish cultural heritage that has to be preserved.’

Spanish friends of mine warned after last year’s general election that the new administration would turn back the clock. The bullfighting industry is well connected in political circles and they have apparently suceeded in bringing back a bit of the old bloody glory.

Mariano Rajoy

So, RTVE’s decision shouldn’t come as a surprise. The governing People’s Party of prime minister Rajoy (photo on the right) has a majority in the board. Reintroducing live corrida broadcasts is only a consequence of the culture minister’s announcement to grant bullfighting the ‘status of a cultural discipline and cultural product’ that has to be protected.

What can you expect of a government when the head of state, and patron of the WWF no less, goes shooting elephants in Botswana?

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