Protesters hold up signs reading "No is no". Photo: AFP 
 
 AFP · 13 Jul 2016, 08:20 
 
 Published: 13 Jul 2016 08:20 GMT+02:00 
 
 Fifteen men have been arrested for rape and sexual assault at Spain's famed San Fermin bull-running festival in the northern town of Pamplona, the city hall said on Tuesday. 
 
 The nine-day festival, which began on July 6th and ends on Thursday, mixes concerts, daily bull runs and round-the-clock drinking. 
 
 It has become infamous for reports of sexual assaults, including men groping women's breasts at the opening party known as the "Chupinazo". 
 
 Pamplona city officials have in recent years launched various initiatives to curb such assaults at the fiesta, which was immortalised in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises". 
 
 Police have received 15 complaints of assault so far this year, including six for "sexual aggression" which under Spain's penal code includes rape. The other complaints were for the lesser charge of "sexual abuse". 
 
 A total of 15 men were arrested, city hall said in a statement. 
 
 Two of the suspects have since been released without charge and one of the complaints has been shelved. 
 
 A 22-year-old French woman filed a complaint with police for rape on Saturday. According to Spanish media reports she was attacked in the bathroom of a car park. 
 
 A 19-year-old woman told police she had been raped in the early hours of Thursday in the doorway of a building in central Pamplona by five men who filmed the attack with a mobile phone. 
 
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 Five men have been arrested in connection with that assault. 
 
 Thousands of people, wearing the festival's traditional red neckerchiefs and white clothes, gathered outside Pamplona city hall on Monday night to protest against sexual attacks against women. 
 
 They held their hands up in a "stop" gesture or carried red signs reading "No is no". ||||| Annual San Fermín festival has seen four rapes, one attempted rape and seven cases of sexual abuse reported over last six days 
 
 Pamplona’s annual bull-running festival has again been marred by a series of alleged sexual assaults, with four rapes, one attempted rape and 10 cases of sexual abuse reported over the last six days. 
 
 
 
 Organisers of the San Fermín festival, in which hundreds of people race bulls through Pamplona’s cobbled streets, have stepped up their campaign to combat sexual violence since 2008, when a young nurse was strangled and beaten to death. 
 
 
 
 Deathwish as lifestyle: why people run with the bulls | Miguel-Anxo Murado Read more 
 
 This year’s festival, which began on 6 July, has already seen 15 people arrested over allegations of sexual assault. Among them are five men – including a recent graduate of the Guardia Civil police force – who were detained in connection with the alleged rape of a woman on Thursday night. The incident is thought to have been filmed on a mobile phone. 
 
 On Monday night, women’s rights activists and other protesters crowded into the Plaza del Castillo, where one of the rapes is alleged to have taken place, to demonstrate against the attacks. It came four days after thousands of people staged a similar protest. 
 
 Pamplona’s city councillor for public safety, Aritz Romeo, insisted the council was working to tackle the violence and had made it easier for women to report assaults. He suggested that the rise in attacks could be the result of increased reporting. 
 
 Two Spanish men gored in Pamplona bull run Read more 
 
 “I don’t think what’s happening in Pamplona is different from what’s happening in other cities at festival time, it’s just that we’ve opened up the channels of communication and there are 3,400 police officers [deployed] to catch attackers,” he told El País. 
 
 In a statement, the council said it supported Monday’s protest, adding that it was working to “eliminate sexist attacks and to improve safety for women wherever they are”. 
 
 It also called on residents and visitors to play their part in addressing the problem. 
 
 “We urge those who are attacked to keep reporting it, we encourage other citizens to maintain an active approach to this kind of assault and to help report it, and we reject and condemn the attacks and stress that Pamplona will not tolerate sexist assaults,” it said. 
 
 Last year, the mayor of Pamplona, Jose Asirón, said the sexual attacks had become “a black stain on San Fermín”. ||||| Women’s groups say assault and harassment are engrained in the world-famous festival and call on authorities to tackle rather than tolerate it 
 
 Fast and goring-free were the words used to describe the final bull run of this year’s San Fermín festival in Pamplona, Spain. As the gates on their holding pen opened on Tuesday, six bulls from the renowned Miura ranch made their way through the narrow streets of the city in a record time of just over two minutes. 
 
 As the world-famous event came to a close, however, local women’s groups were using a different set of words to describe this year’s festivities, urging authorities to do more to combat a culture of sexual aggression they say has become synonymous with the festival. 
 
 This year’s festival saw hundreds of protesters gather outside Pamplona’s city hall on Monday, in response to reports of a sexual assault on a 19-year-old British woman last week. Women’s groups said she had been assaulted in a bathroom before two friends rescued her. Police are investigating the incident. 
 
 Pamplona's San Fermín festival begins – in pictures Read more 
 
 Local women’s groups have warned for years of a dark side to the festival’s nine days of alcohol-fuelled partying and bull runs, pointing to the many complaints received about sexual harassment and assaults among the crowds. 
 
 “For years, San Fermín was sold as a fiesta where anything goes, where you can do whatever you want and there are no consequences,” said Zuriñe Altable of the Platform of Women Against Sexual Violence. 
 
 Media from around the world descend annually on Pamplona to cover the daily release of six half-tonne fighting bulls along the city’s narrow streets, but scant attention has been paid to the issue of women’s safety during the event. No official figures are available, but Altable said that incidents involving gropings, insults and physical aggression against women were reported to the police during this year’s festival. 
 
 After years of downplaying the problem, city officials have begun to take action. A special police force was deployed during last year’s festival to try to prevent sexual assaults, and police now film the wine-drenched revelry known as the chupinazo to allow them to identify perpetrators. The city has also begun publishing a multilingual guide on gender-based violence and where to seek help, and an information point has been set up in the city during the festival. 
 
 The complaints emerging from this year’s festival, however, suggest that much more needs to be done, Altable said. “In some ways things are changing. With these prevention campaigns, society is aware of these problems and is taking action against these aggressions rather than tolerating them.” 
 
 On Monday evening, protesters dressed in red and white gathered outside city hall, holding up signs that read “enough already” as they urged authorities to implement further measures to address the issue. Local bars were also encouraged to join in the protest by turning off their music for half an hour after midnight. 
 
 Women’s groups questioned whether the city’s efforts were aimed at putting an end to the aggression or simply an attempt to manage the bad publicity. “The sexual aggression that takes place during the famous San Fermín festival in Pamplona isn’t something that was born yesterday,” wrote Verónica Landa on the website of the feminist group Pan y Rosas, or Bread and Roses. 
 
 Sexual aggression has become so engrained that it has even been reflected in the festival’s publicity, Landa said. Earlier this year Pamplona city hall said it would take action against an Andalusian tour company over San Fermín adverts that showed a bra dangling from a bull’s horn and a woman being fondled by a dozen men as she lifted her shirt during the celebrations. 
 
 Local authority campaigns to tackle the issue are insufficient, not to mention sexist and patriarchal, Landa said. “Most of them focus on the idea that it is up to women to prevent sexual aggression or know how to react in the face of these acts.” 
 
 As the San Fermín festival came to an end on Tuesday, the mayor of Pamplona, Joseba Asirón, said this year’s event had been wonderful, with the exception of the sexual attacks. “We’ll never tire of saying that these are intolerable, and that right now they are a black stain on San Fermín.” The newly elected mayor said the city now had a year to tackle the issue and promised next year’s festival would be different. 
 
 There were no serious injuries in the final run of San Fermín in Pamplona, but the town of Pedreguer, near Alicante in eastern Spain, was in mourning on Tuesday after a French tourist was gored to death at its local fiesta. Media reports said the 44-year-old had had been engrossed in recording the festivities, in which bulls charge through the street chasing locals and tourists, on his mobile when he was gored twice. 
 
 Pedreguer authorities said the fiesta’s remaining events featuring bulls would be cancelled and reminded those taking part in the events to “do so responsibly and in accordance with safety standards”. ||||| Pamplona’s City Hall had organized a special information campaign to help prevent sex crimes during the bull-running festival this year. The police presence was also stepped up, and surveillance cameras were added in some areas deemed to be risky. 
 
 Joseba Asirón, the mayor of Pamplona, told reporters on Tuesday that his administration believed that the number of sexual assaults was probably in line with previous years. But in the climate of heightened awareness about sexual violence, he welcomed the protests against the attacks and the fact that people seemed more inclined to report such assaults. 
 
 “The real difference with other years isn’t that such things are happening but that they are finally getting denounced,” Mr. Asirón said. “What is coming to light isn’t just the tip of the iceberg, but the dimension of the problem.” 
 
 “The image, whether good or bad, that is being projected from this city is that of a sick society, not only here but everywhere,” he said. 
 
 Still, he insisted that “999 out of 1,000” of the people who visit Pamplona during the running of the bulls are “wonderful people who come to have a good time.” 
 
 As a sign of protest, spectators of Monday’s bullfight in Pamplona left the ring in silence. Bars also turned off party music as protesters gathered at one of the main squares. 
 
 “Such terrible events are of course very bad for our image,” said Amaia Cia, a veterinarian who took part in Monday’s protest. “But it is positive that our government is showing the courage to bring to light this problem and everybody is becoming aware that such things can’t be allowed to happen.” ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
– Bulls goring humans in Pamplona isn't the only form of violence making headlines at this year's San Fermin festival. At least 15 cases of sexual assault, including four rapes and one attempted rape, and 15 arrests have been reported since the festival started July 6, drawing attention once more to the sexual violence that's been prominent on organizers' radar since the 2008 beating death of a young woman, the Guardian reports. Five of the suspects are being tied to one alleged attack: the rape of a 19-year-old woman that was reportedly filmed on a cellphone, the New York Times reports. One of the men is said to be a recent grad of Spain's military police corps, while another is also reportedly a service member. A female police officer says she was molested; a 22-year-old French woman said she was raped in a parking lot bathroom, per the Local. Thousands have already taken to the streets in protest, demonstrating against what San Fermin Mayor Joseba Asiron last year called an "intolerable … black stain on San Fermin." The Telegraph notes that last year's event saw only four sexual assault reports total, making this year's increase alarming. But the councilor of Pamplona's public safety program says that rise in numbers is only because the city is working so hard to combat sexual violence, making it easier for women to report it and therefore upping the number of attacks cited in the media. "I don't think what's happening in Pamplona is different from what's happening in other cities at festival time," he tells the Guardian. "It's just that we've opened up the channels of communication" and have 3,400 officers on the streets.