Colombian Congress prohibits bullfighting throughout the country

The Colombian Congress took a stab at the bullfights by approving on Tuesday its ban throughout the country, which would become effective within three years if it obtains the signature of the president, Gustavo Petro, as the last step to become law.

Colombia has been one of the five Latin American countries to allow bullfighting along with Venezuela, Peru, Mexico and Ecuadorthese last two where bullfighting practices are partially prohibited in some states and cities.

This is an initiative that generated resistance in the Colombian Congress, where at least four projects seeking a ban have failed in the last six years. On Tuesday, 93 House representatives voted to ban bullfighting and two to continue allowing it, in the last of the four debates necessary for a bill that dragged on for several weeks.

The text must be reconciled in the Senate and House, a procedure that usually advances easily to adjust small details before going to the presidential sanction.

The approved project seeks the progressive prohibition of practices of “cruel entertainment with animals” which include bullfights, corralejas – in which there is no bullfighter and in his place any assistant faces the bull – and shows with calves and steers.

“Colombia, a world power of life, cannot continue allowing bloody entertainment at the expense of animal suffering, much less hide behind torture.”he told The Associated Press Sergio Manzanolegal advisor of Colombia Without Bullfightinga coalition of animal rights advocates.

Congress ordered the Ministries of Culture and Environment to regulate, within two months after the law came into force, the conditions under which bullfighting practices would be developed in the three transition years in which they will continue to be allowed under “the highest standards of animal welfare and protection”.

For bullfighting it is about ending a tradition that dates back to Colombia since colonial times that would affect the culture and its economy. “I have arrived here with my exclusive light suit for the squares, seeing the situation and the political persecution that seeks to destroy our dreams and our rights,” declared before Congress on May 7, Johan Paloma, a bullfighter from Choachí, a town 56 kilometers from Bogotá, who asked that the “fiesta brava” be “respected.”

The approved project urges the government to seek economic and labor reconversion for people who are dedicated to bullfighting and who demonstrate that it is their main economic support. It will also have to transform settings such as bullrings so that they can be used for cultural and sports activities.