Ulverston Woman Protests Bullfighting’s Bloody Stain on Pamplona

For Immediate Release:

5 July 2018

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

ULVERSTON WOMAN PROTESTS BULLFIGHTING’S BLOODY STAIN ON PAMPLONA

23-Year-Old Joins Activists From Around the World to Tell Public That Torment and Killing of Bulls Must Stop Now

Ulverston, Cumbria – Holding a sign that read, “Stop the Bloody Bullfights,” 23-year-old Lydia Smyth, from Ulverston, joined more than 100 other protesters in the centre of Pamplona, Spain, today. During the high-octane demonstration, activists – half of whom were “runners” and half of whom were “bulls” – shot blood-red flares into the sky to call for an end to the city’s yearly torment and killing of bulls during the San Fermín festival. The protest – which was organised by PETA and Spanish animal-protection group AnimaNaturalis – took place ahead of the Running of the Bulls, during which dozens of bulls are terrorised and struck as they’re chased through the cobbled streets on their way to a violent death in the bullring.

A photo of Smyth is available here, and video footage of the event is available here. More photos are available upon request.

“I was proud to represent the vast majority of people around the world, whose tolerance of the archaic, murderous spectacle of bullfighting ran out long ago,” says Smyth. “It’s time that Pamplona stopped allowing terrified bulls to be speared and stabbed to death for this form of so-called ‘entertainment’ that’s nothing more than bloodlust.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – notes that more than 100 Spanish towns and cities have banned bullfighting. But in Pamplona, bulls are tormented with electric prods and sharp sticks before slipping and sliding along the narrow streets. Once in the bullring, as many as eight men taunt, beat, and jab each bull with daggers and harpoon-like banderillas until he becomes weakened from blood loss. Then, the matador stabs the exhausted animal with a sword and an executioner cuts his spinal cord. Many bulls are paralysed but still conscious as they’re chained and dragged out of the arena.

Smyth is available for interviews.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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