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"'Adéu' to the bulls," Barcelona-based daily El Periódico bids a Catalonian goodbye to the noble bovines following the last legal bull fight in Catalonia. The Regional Parliament voted to ban the practice in July 2010 and the legislation goes into force in 2012. Barcelona's Arena Monumental was sold out to watch star bull fighter José Tomás. Pro- and anti-bullfight demonstrators were also present.
"Everything shows that bull fights were already condemned and died a natural death," writes El Periódico, pointing to a 37% drop in the number of such events organized throughout Spain. The paper therefore expresses its "astonishment" over the decision to ban what is considered "an individual right" – to watch or not to watch a bull fight that one approves of or not – "which should not have been limited by political considerations". "It's odd," the paper concludes, considering the "serious problems" which citizens must face these days," that the first successful grass-roots legislative initiative in the history of the [Catalan] Parliament be this one and not another".
