Calves speared with banderillas: That's entertainment on Spanish TV

22 May 2012

Last Wednesday the series "I want to be a bullfighter" ('Quiero ser torero' ) was launched on TeleMadrid and Castilla la Mancha TV channels.

In a reality show devoid of all compassion for sentient beings, six young men are competing for the title of the best animal torturer. Their victims, calves and young steers, represent nothing but living props for a mind-boggling spectacle of cruelty, agony and death.

Laura Durate, speaker of PACMA (Party Against Bullfighting, Cruelty and Mistreatment of Animals), informed that since animals have been filmed being tortured and killed without regard for the law and animal welfare, the necessary legal measures will be taken to stop the TV show or at least impose sanctions against the promotion of cruelty to animals and barbarism.

Moreover PACMA is firmly opposed to the continued funding of animal torture, which is rejected by the majority of Spanish society, and up to 74.5% of Madrid citizens consider that these shows should be abolished, according to the last SIGMADOS poll in July 2011.

In the EU context it would be of interest to find out if and to what extent European taxpayers are forced to finance this horror. Are people in Germany, UK, Poland and in all the other member nations unknowingly keeping the bullfighting industry afloat while in Spain the interest in blood and gore in the arena is dwindling?


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1. Petition


2. Background info in Spanish

Reglamento de Espectáculos Taurinos - Ministerio del Interior


3. Useful addresses:

- Contact TeleMadrid
e-mail telemadrid@telemadrid.es

- Spanish Embassies

- List of Spanish MEPs

Author: div

Link: España: Programa 'Quiero ser torero' desata polémica y rechazo de defensores de animales
Link: Francisco Martin: ''Fellow sentient beings are systematically and senselessly slaughtered without any purpose, other than to satisfy an unnatural and depraved lust for blood'