The bullfights scheduled for November 2022 in the Mexican municipality of San Martín Texmelucan were cancelled thanks to the work of the civil nonprofit Círculo de Amparo of Puebla. Animal protection groups also managed to cancel the bullfights scheduled for August in the municipality of Zacatlán, also in the Mexican state of Puebla (southeast of Mexico City).
On 22nd November 2022, the Fourth District Court in matters of Civil Appeals, Administrative, Labor and Federal Trials in the Mexican State of Puebla granted the definitive suspension of bullfighting in the municipality of San Martín Texmelucan, so the festival initially planned for 11th November had to be cancelled. However, the bullfighting industry reacted and rushed to change the venue of the event to the neighbouring state of Tlaxcala, keeping the same dates.
In August, the Fourth District Judge in Matters of Civil Appeals, Administrative, Labor and Federal Trials in Puebla granted the provisional suspension not to carry out the bullfight in Zacatlán scheduled for August 20, as part of the traditional Apple Fair of that municipality.
There is a running proposal to ban bullfighting and cockfighting in the State of Puebla presented on 23rd June 2022 by the local PAN deputy, Guadalupe Leal Rodríguez. This initiative is what has allowed many grassroots groups to lobby local authorities to cancel bullfights pending the outcome of the political debate on the issue. Other states in Mexico have already banned bullfighting (Sonora, Guerrero, Coahuila, Quintana Roo, and Sinaloa), and in other municipalities, such as Mexico City, bullfights have been suspended also pending political and/or judicial decisions. On 7th November 2022, animal rights activists protested in front of the National Service of Health, Agri-Food Safety and Quality offices in Mexico, accusing this federal government department of “allowing the celebration of bullfighting shows” because they claim that bullfighting is illegal according to Mexican law. Different courts in the country are looking at this issue to see whether this is true.
