Bull killing in Colombia angers animal activists

We’re glad the videos don’t get close up enough to show what happened.

20 people in northern Colombia brutally beat, kicked, stoned and stabbed a bull to death during festivities. The horrific beating has outraged Colombians and even generated a response from the country’s environment minister.

The video shows how people in a bullring relentlessly pursue, harass and strike the animal with sticks and stones until it falls and is kicked and stabbed by some 20 individuals, who even jump on top of it.

On Blu Radio, Environment Minister Gabriel Vallejo said:

I have to say it is totally barbaric, where people with sticks, stones and knives, and with utter cruelty, kill the bull.”

The country’s executive is looking into passing legislation that will stop such future events and the Colombian Attorney General’s Office has said it will open an investigation that could result in criminal charges against Turbaco Mayor Myron Martinez and the organizer of the bullfighting festival, Julio Quintana.

Martinez defended the festival, known as “corralejas” in an interview with Caracol Radio.

In the ‘corralejas’ there are always injuries, there are always animals that receive blows, always horses killed, there are different kinds of incidents that are part of the tradition and custom of the bullfighting festivals.”

The spokesman in Colombia for the NGO AnimaNaturalis International, Andrea Padilla, said the video should be seen around the world in order to raise awareness about the need to stop the mistreatment of animals in this country.

Padilla said on the AnimaNaturalis website that people need to speak up.

The video circulating on networks where you see a mob slaughtering a bull tip threw bottles , stones , kicking and knives , you must turn the world. Why did the people of Turbaco not voice their their opposition, that should be condemned by all Colombians and the international community.”

For Andrea Padilla, ” this atrocity is an alert on the degree of social decay that are coming for Colombians. It is time for legislators, leaders and citizens take seriously the discussion about banning corralejas , bullfights and other spectacles involving animals and generate violence.”

 

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Peg Fong is also in recovery from newspapers

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