Three Coachloads Of Britons En Route To Pamplona For ‘Running Of The Nudes’

PETA Hopes ‘Human Race’ Will Expose and End Cruelty Behind Bull Run

For Immediate Release:
4 July 2005

Contact:
Andrew Butler 020 7357 9229, ext. 230

Pamplona, Spain – Three touring coaches left London on Sunday, carrying more than 100 people to join an estimated 600 PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) supporters from around the world in a run through the streets of Pamplona – most of the participants wearing nothing more than red scarves and plastic horns. PETA’s fourth annual “Human Race”, or “Running of the Nudes”, will take place on 5 July, two days before the city’s “Running of the Bulls”. The runners’ goal is to show that there is a win-win alternative to an old-fashioned and cruel spectacle in which panicked animals are stampeded through town, only to end up tormented and slaughtered in the bullring.

PETA wants Pamplona to embrace a new tradition – the festive, naked “Human Race” – and to stop abusing bulls, who are terrified by the ordeal and often suffer serious injuries as they slip and fall in their flight down cobbled streets. Spanish opposition to bullfighting is mounting. After the Barcelona City Council declared Barcelona an anti-bullfighting city in April 2004 in an effort to eventually ban this primitive blood sport – seen by many as a shameful part of Spain’s past and not reflective of a progressive European country – other Spanish towns, including Torello, Calldetenes and Olot, followed suit.

Before the bull run, electric-shock prods and sharpened sticks are typically used to force the animals into a stampede. In the bullfights afterwards, the bulls are often debilitated with tranquilisers and beatings and blinded with petroleum jelly rubbed into their eyes so that they are less able to cope with the matadors’ attacks. According to The New York Times, as many as 90 per cent of tourists who attend bullfights never return after witnessing the animals’ suffering.

“Now that we have finally outlawed foxhunting in the UK, compassionate Britons are out to end  the sickening bloodsport of bull torture in Spain”, says PETA Director of European Campaigns Sean Gifford. “Tourists flocking to Pamplona want some fun, and our Running of the Nudes aims to give them just that – without harming a hair on a bull’s back.”

This year’s Running of the Nudes boasts twice as many participants as last year’s race, which garnered international media attention and included runners from Canada, the US and almost every country in Europe. To view footage of last year’s “Human Race”, please visit RunningOfTheNudes.co.uk

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