Colombia lawmakers pass bullfighting ban

Colombia’s Congress has passed legislation banning bullfighting.

Lawmakers passed the bill 93-2 on Tuesday. Activists have spent many years seeking to prohibit the controversial blood sport, which is a centuries-old colonial tradition in the country.

The ban will be phased in over a three-year period, during which the state would be required to help find alternative employment options for the tens of thousands of people directly or indirectly dependent on the sector.

Reporting from Bogota, Al Jazeera’s Alessandro Rampietti said the bill had been greenlighted after “years of strenuous political battles”.

The once popular tradition, introduced by Spanish colonisers, had been “losing fans in recent years” and had turned into a “pastime for a small elite”, he said.

Juan Carlos Losada, a lawmaker with the Liberal Party, told Al Jazeera that the ban would enable the country to re-evaluate the “culture of violence” it had inherited.

“The next generations will grow up in a country where culture will define things much more creatively than torturing animals for the amusement of a few insensitive people,” he said.

However, bullfighting aficionados described the ban as an assault on the freedoms of minorities, as well as a problem for cities where these events draw thousands of visitors.