‘Torture isn’t culture’: Thousands protest bullfighting in Madrid

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of central Madrid on Saturday calling for bullfighting to be banned in Spain, the country that invented it.

Published: 14 May 2017 09:02 CEST

'Torture isn't culture': Thousands protest bullfighting in Madrid

Anti-bullfighting protesters hold placards reading "Do you bullfight by tradition? Let's restore the inquisition!" Photo: Gerard Julien/AFP

“We are fighting to end the corridas and any spectacle organized in Spain which mistreats animals for people's amusement,” 48-year-old lawyer Sandra Barrena, one of the protesters, told AFP.

“Torture is not culture,” chanted the marchers, who also called for the end of all grants to bullfighting events.

In 2010, the Catalan government voted to ban deadly bullfighting in the northeast region but last year Spain's top court overturned that decision, judging that it was part of Spain's cultural heritage.

The bullfighting tradition has drawn increasing controversy and protests around Spain in recent years, with demonstrators turning up and taking to Twitter to denounce what they feel is a brutal, anachronistic event.

Saturday's protest followed a similar one in Madrid last September.