Villagers laugh as bull endures flame torture in
firework fiesta
By John Ingham
A panic-stricken bull tosses his head in terror as
jeering men turn him into a
sickening live firework display. Blood pours from his nostrils and the
acrid
smell of his burning horns fills the air, while he rushes about
bellowing in agony
for 30 horror-filled minutes. All he wants is a quick end to his ordeal
but
the onlookers, three-hundred residents of the tiny cliff top village of
Medinaceli
in Northern Spain, show no sympathy on this bitterly cold night. They
just stand
there laughing at the Jubilation Bull. And they add to abject fear by
letting off
hundreds of deafening firecrackers.
Film of this cruel episode [was] presented to the
European Parliament in
Strasbourg in a bid to get the "sport" outlawed at Medinaceli and 2000
other
village fiestas across Spain. The shocking images were captured by
veteran
campaigner Vicky Moore and husband Tony, back on the front line against
animal cruelty for the first time since she was nearly killed while
filming the
running of the bulls in Coria, Spain, more than three years ago. Then, a
rampant bull gored her eleven times, smashed eight of her ribs, pierced
a lung
and scraped her back bone. Vicky, 40, spent a month in a coma and subse-
quently lost a kidney in a series of operations which only finished last
summer.
But just before Christmas, she put her nightmares behind her to return
to her
campaign, The Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe. She confessed that
seeing the Medinaceli bull charging toward her brought back terrible
memories.
"But I also felt that I had been blessed to have enough stamina to be
back in the
front line," she said. "The animal was out of its mind, with sheets of
flame
engulfing its head. It was like watching someone being burned at the
stake.
You could smell the burning flesh and hear the animal screaming. The
festival
was considered so cruel that even General Franco banned it, but it was
revived
after his death. Balls of tightly packed hemp, soaked in resin and wax,
are tied
to the bull's horns and when they are set on fire with torches, flames
shoot
several feet into the air. The film was be shown to the European
Parliament's
Intergroup on Welfare and Conservation of Animals, chaired by London
West's
Labour Rep Michael Elliott. Vicky hopes that the Parliament will
pressure the
Spanish authorities into banning the fire-bull fiestas. But for this
bull any action
will be too late. He was killed and eaten in a pre-Christmas village
feast. Vicky
dismisses criticism that she is interfering in Spain's ancient culture,
claiming
that many fiestas are modern inventions by farmers who can sell a bull
to a
festival for up to eight times the price it would fetch for beef.
For more information, contact:
The Fight Against Animal Cruelty in Europe
29 Shakespeare Street, Southport,
PR8 5AB, England
Go on to An ARO
Personal Story
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