From: wheeler@SUPER.ORG (Ferrell S. Wheeler)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: PAIN IN SPAIN
Date: 27 Jul 92 16:26:01 GMT



International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
411 Main Street
Yarmouth Port, MA  02675-1822
(508)362-6268
 
                 PETITION AGAINST THE PAIN IN SPAIN
 
There will be two sorts of games in Spain this summer . . the Olympic Games
with their fine principals of fair play and unity . . and the barbaric
games played by a small number of cruel Spaniards in which animals suffer
slow and agonizing deaths.
 
These games will be played alongside each other this year in Spain where
the eyes of the world will be focused on the Olympics in Barcelona and also
on the global showcase of Expo '92 in Seville.
 
IFAW - the International Fund for Animal Welfare - believes this summer
provides a vital opportunity to bring out a timely trump card in its
campaign against the so-called 'blood fiestas' given Spain's leading role
on the world stage.
 
The organization - the world's largest animal welfare group with one
million supporters worldwide - is now putting the finishing touches to a
petition which currently has three-quarter of a million signatures to be
presented to Her Majesty Queen Sophia of Spain asking that she helps to
stop the cruelty.
 
This Olympic 'Torch of Hope' petition hopes to repeat IFAW's success in
Korea when a similar petition which coincided with the 1988 Olympics helped
prompt the Korean Government to pass sweeping anti-cruelty laws covering
the torture of cats and dogs for human consumption.
 
IFAW has also asked all of its supporters around the world to boycott
bullfights and urge any friends or relatives who may be among the hundreds
of thousands of Europeans who holiday in Spain every year to do the same.
 
Tourists are a major source of revenue for the bullfight barons so US and
Canadian animal lovers shouldn't be shy of persuading people they know who
are heading for Spain that they should not attend a bullfight.
 
IFAW has been working towards ending the Spanish 'blood fiestas' since 1983
but has recently been disappointed to learn of new Spanish Government
regulations which protect ninety per cent of fiestas where bulls are the
victims.  Officials and promoters - known as the 'Bullfight Mafia' - have
re-classified bull fiestas as bullfights because they are 'traditional
entertainment.'
 
Over the years there have been many promises of action from the Spanish
authorities but there are still thousands of Saints' Day fiestas in which
tens, and possibly hundreds of thousands of animals die painful deaths in
the name of entertainment.
 
 
Since investigating the first Spanish horror story in '83 where small
animals like rabbits and squirrels were tied by the legs and used as living
targets, the IFAW team has cataloged literally thousands of cruel fiestas.
Most involve the slow killing of cattle - anything from helpless calves to
fully-grown rejected fighting bulls.
 
Animals are tormented by having darts thrown at them, being castrated alive
and being set on fire.  Finally, they are butchered and eaten - all in the
name of a Holy Day!
 
Other fiestas include beating a donkey through the streets, hurling a live
goat from a church tower and hacking the heads off cockerels with a sword.
Most take place away from tourist areas and often happen with the approval
of local church authorities on church property.
 
In spite of IFAW supporters deluging Spanish embassies around the world
with protest letters and talks with high-level representatives of Pope John
Paul II, there are still no national animal protection laws in Spain.
There are some regional laws but they are ineffective due to exemptions for
bullfighting and related events 'of a traditional nature.'
 
There are some signs of hope - in 1989 the Mayor of Tossa De Mar,
Catalonia, banned bullfights and all events involving cruelty to animals
in his town and the surrounding area.  Other successes include the banning
of chimpanzees being used by street photographers in Benidorm, local
'people-power' stopping a fiesta in Granada featuring mock bullfights and
a chicken be-heading fiesta in Arenal being broken up by police on the
orders of the Provincial Governor.
 
IFAW firmly blames the Spanish Government for failing to pass a national
anti-cruelty law and not enforcing existing regulations and also the Roman
Catholic Church for failing to speak out against the cruelty.
 
The irony is that most Spaniards want an end to the fiestas as proved by
a recent IFAW-sponsored Gallup Poll.  It revealed that 94 per cent of
Spanish people believe that animals have feelings of pain and fear and nine
out of ten said it was wrong to make them suffer in fiestas and public
entertainment.  They also agreed that animals should be protected by law.
The poll also showed that less than two out of ten Spanish people attended
a bullfight last year.
 
IFAW has had a long-standing policy of working with local people and has
located and is helping to find fledgling animal welfare groups in Spain.
The organization, with its North America base in Massachusetts, has also
produced a special action pack for British animal lovers to join the fight
for a cruelty-free Olympics and an end to the 'blood fiestas.'
 
To receive an action pack write to IFAW, P.O. Box 193, Yarmouth Port, MA
02675.
 
For further information:  Annemieke Roell (508)362-4944.
 
 
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals