Spain’s National Bullfighting Award is no more. Four months after the Ministry of Culture announced plans to abolish the award, an amended order officially ends the controversial category, according to international news.
The award gave 30,000 euros ($32,217) to individuals or organizations that supported or promoted bullfighting. The government introduced the prize in 2011, with the first presented in 2013. But over the last decade, more and more people have begun speaking out against the cruel torture and murder of bulls under the guise of entertainment. Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun commented on X that in a poll, 90% of respondents believed the award should be abolished.
“I think that’s the feeling of a majority of Spaniards who can understand less and less why animal torture is practiced in our country…, and much less why that torture gets awarded with public money,” Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun said, according to Reuters.
This news shows that more and more people are seeing bullfighting for what it is: the brutal and intentional torture of bulls. A Lady Freethinker investigation into bullfighting in Madrid in 2022 revealed the gruesome reality — mutilated and exhausted bulls with multiple stab wounds were forced to keep fighting until they collapsed and bled out.
Despite the end of the award, Spain is one of the few countries where bullfighting is still legal, but Spanish animal rights advocates have been trying to abolish it for a long time. Catalonia outlawed it in 2010 but, sadly, reinstated it in 2016. Only four other towns — Calonge, Tossa de Mar, Vilamacolum, and La Vajol — have successfully outlawed it.
Lady Freethinker applauds Minister Urtasun and the Ministry of Culture for recognizing that an award celebrating animal cruelty is inhumane — and encourages Spain to act quickly to become the next country to ban bullfighting.
