Spanish lawmakers on Thursday banned bullfighting events featuring people with dwarfism wearing costumes, a move welcomed by disability rights groups but opposed by the actual performers.
Twisting and grunting, a terrified bull with burning balls of tar attached to its horns charges into the darkness in a small town in Spain. Organisers don't want the general public to see the footage as "they know it's not culture, it's animal abuse," say activists.
Spain's controversial bull-running festivals have once again hit the headlines after a deadly summer in which at least 10 people lost their lives, exacerbating divisions over the centuries-old tradition.
It's one of the longest held stereotypes about Spanish society and one that's increasingly controversial, but will bullfighting ever be banned in Spain, or could it even die out soon?
Cries of "Toro, toro!" echo round the empty stands at Madrid's world-famous bullring where two young apprentice bullfighters have seen their promising careers abruptly halted by the pandemic.
With the news last week that the Spanish city of Pamplona in Navarra has been forced to cancel its bull running fiesta for the second year running due to the Covid crisis, animal rights activists have seized on the opportunity to call for it to be banned permanently.
A man died after being gored by a rampant bull Monday during a festival in central Spain, authorities said, the second person killed at a bull festival in the country in less than two weeks.
When the bull collapses and dies in front of the matador, silence descends on Madrid's bullfighting ring, a "ritual" that its French manager Simon Casas vigorously defends in an increasingly conflictive climate.
Veteran bullfighter Enrique Ponce was rushed from the ring after being seriously gored during a corrida to celebrate Las Fallas festival in Valencia on Monday.
Rubén Quintanar, 27, was hailed a hero after he rushed in to save a fallen friend and was gored to death during a village fiesta in Valencia on Saturday.
Shocking footage showing the suffering of a Spanish fighting bull during a fiesta in eastern Spain has renewed calls to ban bullfighting and related activites.
"Here all animals are born and live free until they die," says Victorino Martin, pointing proudly to the herds of fighting bulls grazing by the Tagus River on a famous breeding farm in Spain.
Renowned Spanish bullfighter Iván Fandiño died in hospital on Saturday after being gored by a bull during a fight in southwestern France, a medical service source said.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of central Madrid on Saturday calling for bullfighting to be banned in Spain, the country that invented it.
Guard dogs were not proving enough of a deterrent to thieves at a car breakers yard in eastern Spain so the owner has brought in a pair of fighting bulls.
Spain's Constitutional Court on Thursday cancelled a bullfighting ban in Catalonia in what is likely to exacerbate tensions between Madrid and the separatist region, and between animal activists and fans of the tradition.
The parents of an eight-year-old boy suffering from a rare form of bone cancer are taking legal action after a spate of 'vile' messages by anti-bullfighting campaigners.
