Portugal’s campaigning organisation ANIMAL has issued a jubilant statement saying 2016 will be “a key year” in the fall of Portugal’s blood-thirsty bullfighting industry.
The statement follows the decision by a Braga court not to allow a bullfight in Viana do Castelo, scheduled to go ahead yesterday (Sunday).
Extraordinarily, the pro-bullfighting group “Vianenses pela Liberdade” had also wanted to stage a bullfight using dwarves the Thursday before, reports Público. This too had to be cancelled, as the Braga court had not pronounced on the embargo lodged by the council refusing permission for a pop-up bullring on private land.
Nevertheless, the main attraction – the Sunday event – was finally stopped on the grounds that it went against all kinds of provisos as stipulated in land plans REN/RAN and PDM and conservation documents.
Delighted by the result of what it calls “political lobbying” both nationally and internationally, ANIMAL predicts bullfighting is on its way out, once and for all.
Ironically, Viana do Castelo’s council was the first in Portugal to declare itself “anti-bullfighting”, in 2009.
Since then a number of others have followed in bullfighting countries (Spain now has 108 anti-bullfighting councils), France four, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru two, Venezuela six and Mexico seven.
“ANIMAL guarantees that 2016 will be a significant year in the fall of the bullfighting industry in Portugal”, affirmed the animal rights organisation, “just as 2015 is proving to be in the rest of the world”.
