ROCK ICON CHRISSIE HYNDE CALLS ON MAYOR OF PAMPLONA TO REPLACE CRUEL ‘RUNNING

For Immediate Release:
June 21, 2004

Contact:
Michael McGraw 757-622-7382

International rock legend Chrissie Hynde, writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has fired off a letter to Pamplona Mayor Yolanda Barcina Angulo, urging her to put an end to the barbaric annual ‘Running of the Bulls’ and supplant the event with a kinder, more festive, humans-only run called the ‘Human Race’.

‘I was shocked to learn from my friends at PETA that the bulls who are stampeded through the streets of Pamplona during the day are then tormented and slaughtered in the ring at night’, writes Hynde. ‘This is medieval – not an activity that belongs in the 21st century.’ Hynde asks the mayor to follow the lead of Barcelona, Calonge, La Vajol and other locales in Spain that have banned bullfighting.

Before the bulls are released to run through the streets, electric prods and sharp sticks are typically used to torment and frighten the animals into a stampede. As the bulls run to escape, they sometimes slip and injure themselves, sustaining bruises while also being hit by spectators.

For the third consecutive year, PETA members will lead hundreds of activists from around the world, many wearing nothing but ‘bull horns’ and nonleather running shoes, in a media-mobbed ‘Running of the Nudes’ this July – along the same route that the stampeding bulls will be forced to follow – as a means of promoting a humans-only run.

For more information and to read Chrissie Hynde’s letter to Pamplona Mayor Yolanda Barcina Angulo, please visit PETA’s Web site RunningOfTheNudes.com.