Dogs in cages are sold by vendors at a market during a dog meat festival in Yulin in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in June 2015. Animal rights activists are seeking to shut down the festival. Photo: AP
Animal rights activists are seeking to shut down an annual summer dog meat festival in southern China blamed for blackening the country's international reputation as well as fuelling extreme cruelty to canines and unhygienic food handling practices.
Activists from a coalition of groups said on Monday that they will continue press for the festival to be banned as well as legislation outlawing the slaughtering of dogs and cats and the consumption of their meat.
While an estimated 10-20 million dogs are killed for their meat each year in the mainland, the June 20 event in the city of Yulin has come to symbolise the cruelty and lack of hygiene associated with the largely unregulated industry.
Yu Hongmei, director of the VShine Animal Protection Association, said the mainland needs to follow the example of the vast majority of developed nations that have banned eating dog and cat.
“China needs to progress with the times,” Yu said. “Preventing cruelty to animals is the sign of a mature, civilised society.”
Restaurant owners say eating dog meat is traditional during the summer, while opponents say the festival that began in 2010 has no cultural value and was merely invented to drum up business.
Since 2014, the local government has sought to disassociate itself from the event, forbidding its employees from attending and limiting its size by shutting down some dog markets and slaughter houses. Still, as many as 10,000 dogs, many of them stolen pets still wearing their collars, are slaughtered for the festival held deep inside the poor, largely rural Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Activists said rallies held around the country to oppose dog eating, as well as outrage on social media from the growing ranks of dog lovers, are already having an effect.
However, a draft animal cruelty law remains mired in the mainland’s legislature and prosecution of dog thieves and those violating animal transport laws remains lax, activists complain.
http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/en/component/k2/1252453-20160404.htm
