Mexico City again bans Spanish-style bullfights, now by public demand

Judicial ruling suspended bullfights in 2022-2023.  Lifting the injunction aroused the people & politicians.

            MEXICO CITY, Mexico––Traditional Spanish-style bullfighting is again banned in Mexico City,  for the second time in four years.

This time the ban,  passed 61-1 by the Congress of Mexico City,  may stick.

“México Sin Toreo,  a coalition of organizations,  submitted a citizen-led priority initiative that gathered over 27,000 signatures from citizens supporting the abolition of bullfights,  cockfights and other cruel practices,”  blogged Humane World for Animals president Kitty Block.

Judge had held that bullfights violate right to a violence-free environment

Mexico City judge Jonathan Bass in May 2022 temporarily suspended bullfighting at the Plaza de Toros,  the 42,000-seat city bullring,  reputedly the world’s largest––and usually among the emptiest,  reportedly patronized in recent decades chiefly by tourists.

Bass issued the suspension in response to a lawsuit brought under national environmental law by the civil liberties advocacy organizations Justicia Justa and Va por sus Derechos,  on behalf of the animal advocacy groups CAS International and AnimaNaturalis,

Judge Bass then in June 2022 “ruled that bullfights violated city residents’ rights to a healthy environment free from violence,”  Associated Press summarized.

Mexican Supreme Court disagreed

That ruling,  however,  was in December 2023 overturned without comment by the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice.

Bullfighting returned to Plaza de Toros six weeks later.

(See Bullfighting, cockfighting, & mass murder in Mexico with U.S. links.)

“Last year,”  wrote Block,  “54 bulls were killed in Mexico City between January 18,  2024 and March 24, 2024,  the period encompassing the nine-day bullfighting season.”

“Illegal throughout the country”

Meanwhile,  proclaimed CAS International,  “Our lawyers in Mexico discovered that the slaughter of fighting bulls is illegal throughout the country.  This is because it violates two articles of the federal Animal Health Law.  In addition,  this activity goes against Mexican regulations on methods of killing domesticated and wild animals. The slaughter of fighting bulls during a bullfight is not an exception in this norm.”

Noted Block,  “There are now existing bans on bullfighting in the five Mexican states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Guerrero, Coahuila and Quintana Roo,  among 32 states total,  one of which is Mexico City.

“Bull event without violence does not mean without suffering”

The new Mexico City ban pertains specifically to killing bulls “inside or outside the bullring,”  Block explained,  “as well as to the infliction of physical injury such as stabbing animals with sharp objects,  like swords or spears.

“The new regulations,”  Block said,  “also prohibit violence against animals in novilladas, rejoneo, becerradas,  and other variations on bullfighting in which bulls traditionally suffer injuries or death.  The horns of the bulls will be padded to prevent injury to other animals or people,  and once an event has ended, the bulls will be returned to the farms from which they came,  instead of being killed at the arena.”

Cautioned Anton Aguilar,  executive director of Humane World for Animals Mexico,  “A bull event without violence does not mean one without suffering.”

“Limited to 15 minutes”

Paraphrased Guardian correspondent Thomas Graham,  “Whereas a traditional bullfight involves an array of lances,  barbed spears and a slender sword for the killing blow,”  Mexico City bullfights will now “only allow the matadors to use the capes with which they draw the bulls to charge them.

“The bloodless bullfights [now allowed] will be limited to 15 minutes.”

The 27,000-signature petition leading to the Mexico City legislation,  Graham explained,  “first proposed a total ban,  only for the head of the Mexico City government,  Clara Brugada,  to modify it and introduce the concept of non-violent bullfights,  to retain the economic activity around bullfighting.”

The National Association of Breeders of Fighting Bulls in Mexico asserts that bullfighting generates 80,000 direct jobs,  and 146,000 indirect jobs throughout the nation,  generating total revenue of $400 million per year––all highly questionable claims.

“Cannot be justified under any concept of art & tradition”

Brugada,  while brokering the acceptance of bloodless bullfights as a political compromise,  said “The spectacle of blood cannot be justified under any concept of art and tradition.  Some will argue that it is part of traditions and culture,  but culture,  music and art,  even rights,  change,  evolve,  transform,”  while “Animal welfare,”  she added,  “is a right and a duty for society.”

This perspective was affirmed by a proposed Mexican constitutional amendment passed unanimously in November 2024 by both houses of the federal legislature.

“The legislation must now be approved by a majority of Mexico’s 32 local congresses to become law,”  Mexico News Daily explained at the time.

“The new law would amend three articles of the constitution and empower Congress to enact animal welfare laws,”  Mexico News Daily said.  “It also mandates the humane treatment of animals as a mandatory guideline in all educational institutions nationwide.”

Amendment & bullfighting ban both backed by president

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum supported both the proposed constitutional amendment and the Mexico City prohibition of Spanish-style bullfights.

Offered People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,  “The bill submitted by Mexico City’s mayor doesn’t explicitly outlaw bullfights—but it makes holding them virtually impossible. This strategy mirrors what happened in Bogotá,  Colombia,  where similar restrictions led to an effective ban.”

“Bullfighting fans want to see blood”

Reported Thomas Graham for The Guardian,  “At a press conference,  Salvador Arias,  a lawyer from Tauromaquia Mexicana,  an organization that defends bullfighting,  said Brugada’s proposal for bloodless bullfights resembled one that was tried and failed in the Balearic Islands in Spain,  where it won little interest from fans and was eventually thrown out by a Spanish court.

“Indeed, animal rights groups are counting on that lack of interest,”  Graham wrote,  noting that the animal advocacy group Culture Without Torture “regretted that the ban was not total,  but added that ‘In practice,  we doubt that the proposed events will take place,  since what fans of bullfighting truly want to see is blood.”

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