The Criminal Code will include harsher penalties for animal abuse

• The Government is considering punishing zoophilia and the organization of cockfights and dogs
• ERC calls for increasing sentences so that the cruelest aggressors do not evade prison

As disgusting as it may seem to most people, a quick glance on the internet allows you to find hundreds of videos of sex between humans, usually women, and animals of all kinds. These practices will be vetoed in Spain in the coming months if an agreement is forged between the parliamentary groups of Congress that aims to toughen penalties and introduce new crimes that punish animal abuse and that, according to the sources consulted, has signs of materializing shortly.

Esquerra Republicana has presented eight amendments to the reform of the Penal code that has been discussed for some days in the lower house and that the PP is, for the moment, willing to accept, waiting to know the contributions of the rest of the groups and to seek a joint wording on the behaviors to be typified, according to popular sources.

The reform designed in its day by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, and that after a paralyzed year has been resumed and is being negotiated in an express way with a view to its approval in Congress in mid-January, already improved animal protection, by increasing the penalty, for example, if the mistreatment causes the death of any living being that lives “under human control”.

HEAVY HAND WITH REPEAT OFFENDERS

ERC now proposes that zoophilia be punished for the first time in Spain, with prison sentences of one to three years. It also demands that the organizers of dog or fights be prosecuted and the punishment of abuse in general be toughened, so that if the aggressor is a repeat offender, the judge can decree his entry into prison. This would be achieved by raising prison sentences to three years, since punishments of less than two years normally avoid imprisonment.

Likewise, Esquerra claims a penalty of three months to a year for those who abandon any animal, without demanding that it be in danger, as originally proposed by the reform designed by Gallardón.

Several of these amendments reflect the demands made by the Parliamentary Association for the Defense of Animals (APDDA). Its president, the former deputy of the Chunta Aragonesista Chesús Yuste, warns that, if this opportunity is missed and finally zoophilia is not punished, “there is a risk that Spain will become a sanctuary” of this sexual assault, given that in the rest of the surrounding countries it is already punished.

MORE FREQUENT THAN YOU THINK

Yuste assures that sex between humans and animals is “more frequent than you think” and that there are even pimps who are dedicated to prostituting sheep, cows, horses and other fauna. For this reason, he welcomes the fact that the parties are seeking on this and other aberrations against animals “the maximum consensus”.

According to the sources consulted, the Popular Party, with the approval of the Ministry of Justice, has commissioned a comparative study to analyze how the legislations of other states punish zoophilia, with the purpose of seeking a wording and introducing even penalties in Spain.

Patricia Martin. Madrid.

Source: www.elperiodico.com