(MY) no more dog eating please

[Guest guest]

Issues New Straits Times

No more, please!

By Loretta Ann Soosaraj

 

ANIMAL rights activists the world over are focused on one of the two World

Cup host countries, and it is not because of the startling upset victories,

or the world-class football skills.

 

It is the man-eat-dog culture that has got many people more than a little

miffed.

 

In an attempt to halt the practice, the Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) Selangor organised a petition signing campaign

which saw 7,000 people backing the call to ban this eating habit which has

been slammed, just by animal lovers, but by regular humane human beings. The

signatures, along with a letter addressed to the President of South Korea,

Kim Dae Jung, was handed over to His Excellency Rhee Young Min, the Republic

of South Korea's Ambassador to Malaysia.

 

Below is an excerpt from SPCA's letter to President Kim: Despite the 1984

Ministry of Health law banning dog meat soup and the 1991 law enacted to

protect dogs and cats from torture and slaughter, dog and cats are still not

safe in South Korea.

 

Several South Korean politicians and the Korean media continue to claim that

dog eating is centuries old tradition, but in truth, Korean cultural

heritage does not include torturing and eating dogs and cats. Boiling cats

alive to make " medicine " never existed before the 1980s, when the idea was

first promoted by dog dealers as a money-making scheme. Until the 1980s, dog

eating was a back alley vice practised by men seeking to boost their sexual

stamina. President Kim, even if eating dogs and drinking cat juice were

cultural traditions, isn't it time to abandon these barbaric practices that

so many people around the world find disgusting and cruel? The practice,

described by many as repulsive and uncivilised, is unnecessary.

 

To distinguish the butchered dogs by saying they are specifically bred and

slaughtered for their meat from dogs kept as pets is ridiculous, as a dog is

a dog, and any animal will feel the same pain when beaten, blowtorched,

hanged and electrocuted.

 

And SPCA's final call to the Korean government: Please institute new laws

that will protect dogs and cats from being tortured and consumed. Failure to

do will not only hurt South Korea's public image, but will perpetuate the

negative stereotype of Korea as nothing more than heartless, dog-eating

people.

 

 

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