Kids Recreate ‘Running of the Bulls’ PETA Protest for LEGO Contest

For Immediate Release:
9 June 2020

Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]

Kids Recreate ‘Running of the Bulls’ PETA Protest for LEGO Contest
Scene Reminds Everyone That Bullfighting Is a Blood Sport

Pamplona, Spain – A competition has been announced by Pamplona City Hall inviting children to create a scene inspired by the San Fermín festival using LEGO. Aiming to draw attention to the cruelty of the festival’s annual Running of the Bulls event, two children have submitted an entry which recreates the animal rights protests that precede the bull runs and bullfights every year.

Photos are also available here and here. A video available here.

The scene, created by Noah Baines, 11, and Reggie Baines, 7, from Northampton,
shows LEGO protesters standing in the main city square covered with fake blood, holding signs, and wearing horns to represent the bulls who are killed in the bullring after they’re forced to run along Pamplona’s narrow streets, often slipping and sliding along the way.

“We love animals, and knowing that they’re killed in bullfights in Pamplona makes us sad,” explains Reggie. “Lots of people around the world want to stop this from happening, too. So we made this protest against bullfighting because it’s not right that animals are treated like this. If you want to have fun, you can do things like play with LEGO – you don’t need to hurt bulls.”

As bullfights and events such as the Running of the Bulls are currently suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic and the industry struggles for funding, the scene serves as a reminder that today’s young people want nothing to do with events or traditions that perpetuate cruelty.

More than 125 Spanish towns and cities have declared themselves anti-bullfighting. But in Pamplona’s bullring, men taunt, exhaust, and stab each bull with a lance and several harpoon-like banderillas until he becomes weakened from blood loss. Then, the matador stabs the exhausted animal with a sword, and if he doesn’t die straight away, other weapons are used to cut his spinal cord. Many bulls are paralysed but still conscious as their ears or tail are cut off to be given to the matador as trophies.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview.

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

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