Spanish city hopes to make matadors hang up their hats

Campaigners yesterday declared their intention to turn Barcelona into the first bullfight-free city in Spain by the end of next year, claiming that nearly two-thirds of people in the country's second largest city backed them.

Citing a specially commissioned opinion poll which showed that 63% of the city's population wanted bullfighting to end, the campaigners said Barcelona should lead the way in showing Spaniards this was one tradition they could live without.

Manuel Cases, of Spain's Animal Rights Defence Association, said the campaign was being timed to coincide with the 2004 Universal Forum of Culture, popularly known as the Culture Olympics, which Barcelona hosts next year.

Mr Cases said the poll, co-financed by the World Society for the Protection of Animals, reflected a growing dislike in Barcelona and the north-east region of Catalonia for the tradition.

"At the end of the 19th century there were three bullrings in Barcelona, now there is just one left," he said. "That has bullfights on Sunday from May to October but mostly for people who come in tourist buses from the Costa Brava."

He admitted that Barcelona had its own bullfight fans but claimed they were mostly elderly people.

Barcelona city council, he said, had already become the first in Spain to pass its own declaration of animal rights, which stated that animals "should not be victims of ... cruel acts that imply physical or psychological suffering to them". It should now set an example by using the cultural forum to start the process of banning bullfights in Spain.

"Sooner or later it will be the country that invented bullfights that will ban them first," Mr Cases said. "This will happen region by region, but someone will have to be first and that will probably be Catalonia, with Barcelona leading the way."

Fans of bullfighting, who consider it an art form and an important component of Spain's culture, can be expected to show they disagree when the campaign is launched today.