Spain's Catalonia Bans Bullfighting in Vote

(July 28) -- Lawmakers in the Catalonia region of Spain voted after an emotional debate today to ban bullfighting, a decision that some hope will signal the end of the controversial spectacle throughout the country.

Protesters who believe bullfighting is a blood sport and cruel to animals appeared outside the local parliament building in Barcelona today covered in fake blood and carrying posters of bleeding bulls.

"It's time for this victory," Eric Gallego, a spokesman for the anti-bullfighting group Prou (Catalan for "Enough") told AOL News from inside the parliament building after the vote when cheers were breaking out. "We are here for the bulls, for the animals. We hope this will be the start of the end of this bloody sport."

Prou collected about 180,000 signatures from Catalans on a petition that led to today's vote, called "historic" by Spain's biggest newspaper, El Pais.

The ban takes effect in 2012. The group now plans to campaign to end bullfighting in other areas of Spain where the sport is even more popular, such as Madrid, Pamplona and Seville.

But Spanish conservatives and bullfighting aficionados, which include well-known figures like Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, decried today's vote as striking at the heart of a tradition inextricably intertwined with the country's culture.

"It's a sad day for Catalonia," Alicia Sanchez Camacho, a powerful right-wing lawmaker in Catalonia, said after the vote, according to El Pais.

Some pro-bullfighting factions accuse Catalan nationalists who are seeking independence from Spain of using the bullfighting controversy as political leverage to distance themselves from Spanish culture and say they are not truly concerned about animal welfare.

"Traitors! Traitors!" yelled activists in favor of bullfighting outside the parliament building before the vote.

Many of Spain's top bullfighters appeared on TV and were quoted in newspapers frequently this month defending their sport.

"It's part of who we are," top bullfighter Jose Calvo said today on Spanish television. "It's part of our art and our tradition."

Bullfighting was outlawed in the Canary Islands in 1991, but today's vote banning bullfights in Catalonia, a wealthy, powerful area, is considered more significant.

"The Office" star Ricky Gervais is one of several celebrities who have been vocal opponents of bullfighting.

"Shame on anyone who finds an animal being tortured entertaining," Gervais told the Sunday Times in December. "And shame on anyone who thinks that stepping into a ring armed with swords with a frightened and confused animal who has often already had the tendons in its neck severed so it cannot lift its head is brave."