Marcelo Aparicio

Agence France Presse

BARCELONA: Catalonia’s Parliament on Wednesday voted to ban bullfighting from January 1, 2012, becoming the first region in mainland Spain to outlaw the centuries-old tradition.

Cheers erupted in the assembly as the ban was approved with 68 votes in favor and 55 against and nine abstentions, while supporters and opponents of the ban both held noisy rallies outside.

The motion tightens Catalonia’s animal protection law to remove an exception for bullfights from a ban on killing or mistreating animals in shows, in the biggest ever setback to the practice in Spain.

Animal rights activists campaigning under the platform “Prou!” (“Enough!” in Catalan), had collected 180,000 signatures calling for the assembly to decide on the ban.

Just before the vote, Francesc Pane, the spokesman for the Catalan Green Party, told the assembly that bullfighting amounted to “gratuitous cruelty” and a “show of torture.”

Dozens of supporters and opponents of the blood sport rallied in front of the parliament building during the closely-watched vote, with placards reading “Stop animal cruelty” or “Bulls yes, freedom yes.”

Bullfighting retains a passionate following in Spain and leading matadors are treated as celebrities. But polls suggest the practice’s mass appeal has faded, especially among the young. A 2007 Gallup survey showed that almost three-quarters of Spaniards have no interest in it.

Catalonia has followed the lead of the Canary Islands, which made the practice illegal in 1991.

The move reflects a fall from grace of the sport in the wealthy northeastern region, which has its own language and distinct culture and where many seek independence from Spain.

Barcelona’s last working bullring now holds fights fortnightly rather than weekly, and attracts just a couple of hundred season ticket holders compared to some 20,000 at Madrid’s main bullring.

While Catalonia’s arguments for banning bullfighting have focused on animal rights, many in the rest of Spain believe the push is also based on a desire among some Catalans to emphasise their distinct identity.

The vote came one month after Spain’s Constitutional Court struck down several articles of Catalonia’s “statute of autonomy,” which expanded the already significant powers of regional self-rule.

The main opposition Popular Party, which sees itself as the champion of a centralised Spain, said it would present a motion in Spain’s national parliament to annul the prohibition against bullfighting in Catalonia.

Catalonia has long led opposition to bullfighting. In 2003 it passed an animal protection law that restricted towns without bullrings from building them and prohibited children under 14 from attending bullfights.