Help End Bullfights and the ‘Running of the Bulls’
Contact Your Spanish Embassy
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Contact the ambassador of Spain in your country and ask that bullfights be put to an end:
United Kingdom
His Excellency Señor Don Carlos Miranda
Spanish Ambassador to the United Kingdom
39 Chesham Place
London SW1X 8SB
embespuk@mail.mae.es
United States
His Excellency Carlos Westendorp
Spanish Ambassador to the United States
2375 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20037
embespus@mail.mae.es
Find other Spanish embassies here. Contact the Mayor of Pamplona
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Write to the mayor of Pamplona and ask that the “Running of the Bulls” be put to an end:
Honourable Sra Dña Yolanda Barcina Angulo
Alcaldesa-Presidenta
Ayuntamiento de Pamplona
Plaza Consistorial
31001 Pamplona
Spain Contact Other Spanish Officials
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Please contact the following Spanish officials and urge them to do everything in their power to end bullfights:
Prime Minister of Spain
His Excellecy José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Palacio de la Moncloa
28071 Madrid
Spain
+34 913 900 217 (fax)
jlrzapatero@presidencia.gob.es
Spanish Interior Minister
The Honourable Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba
Interior Minister
Paseo de la Castellana, 5
28046 – Madrid
Spain
+34 915371111
+34 915371003 (fax)
National Bullfighting Issues Consulting Commission of the Interior Ministry
Comisión Consultiva Nacional de Asuntos Taurinos del Ministerio del Interior
C/ Amador de los Ríos, 7
28010 – Madrid
Spain
+34 915371534
+34 915371160
Spanish Environment Minister
The Honourable Cristina Narbona Ruiz
Minister of the Environment
Plaza de San Juan de la Cruz, s/n
28071- Madrid
Spain
+34 91 5976000
http://www.mma.es/portal/secciones/contacto/We suggest you include some of the following points in your letters:
- Opposition to bullfighting is mounting both in Spain and elsewhere. In April 2004, the Barcelona City Council declared Barcelona an anti-bullfighting city in an effort to eventually ban this primitive blood sport. Since then, 38 other Catalan municipalities have followed suit and the Catalonian Parliament has debated a bill that would expand existing cruelty-to-animals laws to include bullfighting.
- According to a Gallup survey in October 2006, 72 per cent of Spaniards show no interest in bullfights, up from 54 per cent in the ’80s.
- It is for tourists that these barbaric events continue, yet most tourists are so disgusted by what they see that they leave before the event has finished and never wish to attend a bullfight again.
- Torturing and killing a defenceless animal should not be celebrated as tradition. People have always tried to use tradition to justify horrible things, such as child labour and slavery. But tradition doesn’t make something right.
- Bullfighting is a cruel blood sport that should have been relegated to the history books a long time ago. No matter what its history is, bullfighting consists of the torture, mutilation and slaughter of animals for entertainment.
- At best, the term “bullfighting” is a misnomer, as there is usually little competition between a nimble sword-wielding matador (Spanish for “killer”) and a confused, maimed, psychologically tormented and physically debilitated bull.
- It is a very cowardly event. The matador has the choice to be there – the bull does not. From the moment he enters the ring from the dark alleyway where he is kept, the bull doesn’t stand a chance. He may be weakened by beatings with sandbags, have the muscles in his neck cut in order to prevent him from lifting his head up all the way, be debilitated with laxatives, have his horns shaved or have petroleum jelly rubbed into his eyes in order to alter his ability to judge distance.
For a guide to letter-writing, click here.
