For Immediate Release
23rd May 2007
The International Anti-Bullfighting Summit, which took place on 18th and 19th May in Lisbon, Portugal, gathering 24 European and Latin American anti-bullfighting organisations, was an historic moment for the anti-bullfighting movement in the world. Many of the organisations which are in the frontline of the social and political struggle to abolish bullfights have established common grounds of work to accomplish this goal, namely by creating the Worldwide Network for the Abolition of Bullfighting.
In the Summit, the participant organisations have assessed the present state of bullfighting in the world and the success of the movement which, both in bullfighting and in non-bullfighting countries, takes continuous action to end this brutal business. There is an abundance of evidence of this success, for example: the two Ecuadorian organisations present in this intercontinental meeting told everyone at the Summit that Ecuador recently declared Baños its first anti-bullfighting city, which is also the first anti-bullfighting city on the American continent.
Among many other decisions and strategies that have been discussed and established, the Summit has not only decided to establish the Worldwide Network for the Abolition of Bullfighting, but it has also decided:
- to organise an annual International Anti-Bullfighting Summit, to take place each year in an European or American country where bullfights exist, which will allow the movement to be even more unified and dynamic;
- to send a letter to the members of the National Assembly of Venezuela who are proposing a new and very progressist animal protection Bill which includes a ban on bullfights, expressing worldwide support to this initiative;
- to support the initiative that ANIMAL is about to launch aimed to abolish bullfights in Portugal.
Portugal
The International Anti-Bullfighting Summit has been organised by the Portuguese animal protection group ANIMAL, in collaboration with the League Against Cruel Sports from the United Kingdom and the Anti-Bullfighting Committee The Netherlands & Belgium (Comité Anti Stierenvechten, CAS), gathering 22 other anti-bullfighting and animal protection organisations from across Europe and Latin America.
On May 17th, all the organisations which have participated in the Summit have joined ANIMAL in an important and symbolic international anti-bullfighting demonstration, which was participated by approximately 700 people, held outside the Campo Pequeno Bullring, Lisbon´s bullfighting arena.
Miguel Moutinho, President of ANIMAL, said "The protest was very successful and it has, for the first time in Portugal, driven the bullfighting industry to send a desperate call to all their agents and supporters to get them to attend the bullfight that occurred in the bullring on that night, so that they would have all the seats taken, as a way to show their "strength". And still, the bullring was far from full of spectators, which is yet another symptom of how weak the industry in Portugal is and of how certain it is that it is about to face its end".
For more informations, please contact Miguel Moutinho, through (00 351) 96 235 81 83 or miguel.moutinho@animal.org.pt.
Note about ANIMAL
ANIMAL is a non-governmental organisation working to educate the public about animals, their characteristics, needs and rights, investigating and exposing animal cruelty and campaigning to abolish the exploitation and abuse of animals in Portugal. ANIMAL also carries lobbying efforts to forward animal protection and takes legal action to enforce animal protection legislation, also involving the media in highlighting the suffering and killing of animals and how important and urgent it is to end it.
Associação ANIMAL | Animal.org.pt | Tel/Fax: 282 491 216
