Torturing animals in the name of 'culture' is under the spotlight all over the world.

Barcelona, for example, one of Spain's most culturally rich cities, recently declared itself an anti-bullfighting city after a year-long Culture Without Cruelty campaign in which 250 000 signatures were collected to stop bull-fighting.

Rejoicing in the triumph of the ban in March this year, Carmen Mendez, president of Association Defensa Derechos Animal (ADDA), said: 'Barcelona has proven itself to be a modern, enlightened city that isn't afraid to turn its back on bullfighting'.

In addition, Scotland also recently banned hunting with dogs, including fox hunting, mink hunting and hare hunting; Northern Ireland has banned hare-coursing.

In South Africa, each year, a bull is tortured to death at the Zulu nation's First Fruit Festival.  The bull's agony includes having his penis tied in a knot, dirt stuffed down his throat and his eyes gouged out.  In terms of Zulu culture, the bull has to be killed with the bare hands of Young Zulu men.

In a register letter, dated 18th may 2004, to King Goodwill Zwelithini at his private residence at Nongoma in Kwa Zulu Natal, Editor of Animal Voice, Louise van der Merwe asked the king please to consider relegating this culture ceremony to history. Louise suggested that the ceremony was out of place in a country that is fighting an epidemic of violence in all its forms.

'Moreover,' she said, 'our society no longer required men to prove their manhood through brute physical strength.'

Mureen Vid, the SPCA PRO in Pietermaritzburg, said she believes   that 'the moral progress of a nation can be seriously hampered by clinging to outdated customs and traditions.'

Every time the First Fruit Festival takes place we are shocked and sickened by the immense and needless suffering of the bull.  But our outcry, is quickly squashed at the mention of the words 'culture' and 'traditional customs'. While tolerance of other people's beliefs is the mark of democracy, the cruel slaughter of animals, slow and painful and terrifying to them can no longer be tolerated,' she said.

Animal Voice believes that the killing of the bull at the First Fruit Ceremony is demeaning and dehumanizing of the South African people as a whole and that 'culture' can never be an excuse for cruelty.

To find out more about the torture of animals around the world, under the guise of culture, visit www.faace.co.uk