Hindus condemn 'barbaric' bullfights' return to Spanish TV

06 September, 2012

Maintaining that there were many other ways to entertain its citizens and visitors, Hindus have strongly criticized return of live bullfights to Spanish television after a six-year ban.

HINDU LEADER Rajan Zed has said that instead of promoting the barbaric, inhumane, horrendous, cruel and unacceptable practice of bullfighting (corrida), Spain should follow example of its regions, Catalonia and Canary Islands and ban the age-old tradition of bullfighting altogether. Spain could easily find other ways to entertain its citizens and visitors, Zed added.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged other countries of the world to outlaw bullfighting practice. European Union should impose a Europe-wide ban on all blood-sports. People, whose jobs were thus affected, should be rehabilitated in other jobs with related training.

Zed stressed that non-violence was a greatest virtue. We had long been out of the caves. Let us get rid of these outdated traditions. World would be a better place without these blood-sports. Bullfighting was just plain cruelty and unnecessary tormenting and abuse of the animals and not an art form. At its traditional time of six pm in Spain, it was well within the children’s viewing time, Zed pointed out.

Television Espanola reportedly broadcast a live bullfight on Wednesday evening from the northern city of Valladolid. Bullfighting ban took effect in Catalonia from January 1 this year while it has already been banned in Canary Islands since 1991.

Besides Spain and France, bullfighting is also practiced in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Colombia, and Venezuela. A typical bullfight usually is of 20 minutes in which a bull is stabbed several times before the final blow with a sword pushed between its shoulder blades. Nobel Prize winner author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was reportedly a fan of bullfighting and mentioned this tradition in his work “Death in the Afternoon”.

According to Utrecht (The Netherlands) based CAS International: Every year, more than 250,000 bulls and cows are tortured and killed worldwide during bullfights and similar events.