A culture of cruelty Anyone who has visited and lived in Spain cannot help but fall in love with

the place and its wonderful vibrancy. And of course, many people in Spain have a deep compassion and respect for animals and in no way support blood sports. But even lovers of Spain cannot brush the elephant in the room as it were under the carpet and ignore the scandal of blood fiestas. Animal rights group, Animal Equality suggests that over 40,000 bulls are tortured each year at bull fighting festivals. The powerful bullfighting lobby defends the practice as a sacrosanct cultural right. And the tourists and Spaniards, who shamefully participate as audiences in this sadistic spectacle, are collectively responsible. The bullfight is simply an evolved form of the Roman amphitheatre where gladiators were pitched against wild beasts. The text books tell us how barbarous it was 2000 years ago, so surely it beggars belief that it still goes on in the st 21 century. And bullfighting is just part of the story. It is claimed there are thousands of other fiestas that include the torture of animals across the country. Some feature ritual donkey bashing like the Pero Palo festival in Extremadura, where annually a donkey is beaten viciously by a baying mob. In the Becerradas in El Escorial calves are tortured to exhaustion by local lads. On collapse they are stabbed and their ears and tails are hacked off as they writhe in agony, then the still living butchered bodies are dragged out of the ring by their horns. Countless other fiestas see lambs mutilated and bulls speared and crudely castrated live without sedation.

At state and EU level this abuse is supported and encouraged, often using EU money paid by tax payers in countries that deplore such cruelty. The Daily Mail reported in 2010 that the EUs annual subsidy to the industry totalled 37 million and annually a further 4.3 billion in agricultural support and 1.1 billion from the EUs Rural Development Programme, had partly been used for animal sacrifice and to renovate bullrings. Celebrities such as Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have made their name starring in films such as Matador (1986), Jamon Jamon (1992) and The Passion Within (2007) that glamorise bullfighting. Pedro Almodavar was accused of animal cruelty and breaking the law when four bulls were slaughtered in bullfighting scenes in his film Talk to Her (2002). The future However, the tide could be turning at last. Even before this scandal broke some animal rights groups such as Animal Equality had exposed terrible instances of hidden animal cruelty in Spain which has led to a number of arrests. In one example the organisation revealed through undercover footage the horrific mutilation of live pigs by farmhands wielding swords. Miguel Rodriguez Castao at the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Madrid, said it was the most horrible treatment of animals hed seen his career. Last year Catalonia banned bullfights in the autonomous region; and according to Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe (FAACE) some significant victories have been won such as prohibiting the tossing of a live goat from the bell tower in the town of Manganeses de la Polvorosa in Zamora. And the economic situation in Spain could also be playing a role; El Escorial town hall said to me that they were not sure the Becerradas would be take place this year due to budgetary reasons. What now though? Will a new generation of Spaniards mobilised by global social media networks drive change and help wean Spain off its gory entertainments? Or, as we gear up to fiesta season will the recent furore be forgotten and the bullfights, blood fiestas and day-to-day abuse of farm animals continue as before? As Laura Gough of Animal Equality says: The animal rights movement in Spain is increasing in size, and awareness about the suffering of animals is commonplace. But we clearly have a long way to go and must continue to aim for a better society for animals.