Photos: Hull Woman Among Nude Activists Protesting Torture of Bulls in Pamplona
Pamplona, Spain – Today, ahead of the Running of the Bulls at the San Fermín festival, Hull local Julie Hayes, 38, joined dozens of animal advocates from PETA and Spanish animal protection group AnimaNaturalis adorned with little more than “horns” and red floor-length veils in the heart of Pamplona in a push for the city to end gory bullfights. Carrying signs that read, “Pamplona: Violence and Death for Bulls”, the activists commemorated the animals who are chased down the local streets to their death in the bullring each year and called for an end to the annual bloodshed.
Photos from the action are available here.
“Many people who run with the bulls don’t realise that the same terrified animals who are goaded down Pamplona’s streets are later stabbed to death in the bullring,” says Hayes. “I stand with compassionate people from around the world in calling on tourists to stay away from this violent bloodbath and on Spanish authorities to take action to end all bullfighting spectacles – because torturing and killing animals is cruelty, not entertainment.”
More than 125 Spanish towns and cities have rejected the torment and butchering of bulls for entertainment, but in Pamplona, these sensitive animals are still subjected to confusion and terror and put at risk of injury from crashing into barriers and walls, falling and breaking their legs, or colliding with one another. Once in the bullring, men taunt and stab each bull with a lance and several harpoon-like banderillas before the matador stabs the exhausted animal with a sword. PETA has previously offered Pamplona’s mayor €298,000 to cancel the Running of the Bulls – an offer that still stands.
Hayes is available for interviews. PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]