Protesters in a Magical Town in Puebla have demanded that a bullfight be pulled from the schedule of an upcoming festival. 

Members of animal rights groups and other citizens protested peacefully outside the Zacatlán government building last week to demand that the event be scrapped from the town’s 80th Feria de la Manzana (“Apple Festival”). 

Mayor Pepe Márquez previously announced the event would take place and, speaking at the coronation of the festival’s beauty queen, said the bullfight had been requested by citizens. 

However, protesters denied that the blood sport was in popular demand and said it wasn’t traditional to the festival. “It’s an activity requested by a very small group, what the residents of Zacatlán really want is for our traditions to be promoted, not for animals to be killed,” one protester said, according to the newspaper E-Consulta. 

“Our municipality has many things that make it unique which have nothing to do with animal abuse. That is why it’s a Magical Town,” another protester told the news site. 

The festival runs from August 13-21 and the bullfight is planned for August 20.

Bullfighting is an ancient tradition which was repopularized in medieval Spain and later exported to its empire. In more recent times, the sport’s future has been put in doubt: in some parts of Spain, it is now illegal.

Likewise, in Mexico, there have been a number of high-profile court decisions on bullfighting. A definitive ruling in June banned bullfights at Mexico City’s Plaza México and later that month the Supreme Court invalidated a three-year-old decree that gave bullfights and cockfights intangible cultural heritage status in Nayarit.

With reports from E-Consulta