ITD Update 19/05/04

May 21, 2004

- ITD

Wednesday, May 19, 2004 5:34 PM

ITD Update 19/05/04

"It's Their Destiny"

News items on Asian animal abuse

19th May 2004

Beijing considers legislation for "animal welfare"

Dear Friends

We are enclosing three news reports in this Update. On reading the first we were, quite frankly, skeptical. Otherwise we would have emailed you immediately to share in the good news. This item (from

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/09/content_1459364.htm ) follows;

' Beijing considers legislation for "animal welfare"

' BEIJING, May 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Beijing is considering drafting laws to protect "animal welfare", the first legislation of its kind on animals, reported Sunday's Beijing Youth Daily. ' The laws have included as a chapter in a regulation on animal hygiene drafted by the Beijing municipal government, which is now soliciting opinions from the Beijing citizens. ' In the chapter "animal welfare", the draft regulation lists a series of provisions to protect the welfare that should be enjoyed by animals, ranging from their life and transportation to their medical care and slaughter. ' The regulation stipulates that no one should harass, maltreat or hurt others' animals and that while carrying animals from one place to another, the vehicles used must be kept clean and animals must be protected from suffering shock, torture or hurt. ' If animals have to be slaughtered out of necessity, like for the sake of controlling the spread of some animal epidemic, they must be killed in a humane way that can bring them the least pain, according to the regulation. ' In addition, they must not be killed before other animals and must be isolated while being killed. ' The regulation also says that teaching experiments that could cause injury or death to animals can only be done in senior high school education or the level above. ' Meanwhile, it is not allowed to arrange a fight between animals or between man and animals for gambling, entertainment, or some other commercial purposes. ' According to the draft regulation, those who maltreat, hurt or abandon animals and those who do not slay animals in a humane way or do not give necessary treatment to injured or sick animals will be imposed a fine up to 10,000 yuan (about 1,209 US dollars).'

The second item appeared the next day in much the same vein ( http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/84084/1/.html );

' BEIJING: Beijing is considering draft laws to protect "animal welfare," in what would be the first legislation of its kind in the country.' The regulations would ban abuse against animals and contain requirements on how they should be treated, including how they are transported or slaughtered, the Beijing Daily says.' The proposal comes after China carried out mass slaughters of weasel-like civet cats last year to fight the respiratory disease SARS, which is suspected to be transmitted from wildlife to humans.' China also killed millions of chickens, ducks and other fowl in several provinces to fight bird flu this year.' Images of civet cats dumped into large vats of disinfectant to be drowned and of poultry being stuffed into sacks and burned alive were splashed on TV screens and newspapers during the culls.' The new regulation stipulates that no-one should harass, mistreat or hurt animals.' It also states that while

carrying animals from one place to another, the vehicles used must be kept clean and animals must be protected from suffering shock, torture or harm, the Xinhua news agency said.' If animals have to be slaughtered out of necessity, such as to control the spread of animal epidemics, they must be killed in a humane way that will cause them the least pain, according to the regulation.' They also must be first put under anaesthesia and not be killed in front of other animals, the draft regulation says, according to the Beijing Daily.' Laboratory experiments that cause injury or death to animals can only be carried out at senior high school level or above, while arranging fights between animals or between humans and animals for gambling, entertainment, or other commercial purposes would be banned.' Those who fail to abide by the proposed law face fines of up to 10,000 yuan (1,209 dollars).' China's animal protection laws mainly apply to endangered

species, and even those laws are not well-enforced.' There is little protection for household pets, for example, many of which were thrown on the streets by their owners last year due to SARS fears.'

Those of us optimistic enough to hope that the Beijing Government might be considering applying some of its considerable control over its people to alleviate cruelty and suffering within its borders were in for a rude awakening. The last item appeared in the Taipei Times;

' China mulls first animal rights law' Statutes protect endangered animals, but treatment of other animals is currently beyond enforcement

' AFP , BEIJING ADS1 Monday, May 17, 2004,Page 16

' One dog drags himself around with his front paws because his hind legs have been brutally clubbed. Two Pekinese are blinded, their eyes scratched out. A white cat's pelvis has a large, red gash running down it.

' But even if the people who tortured these animals were caught, there is no law to prosecute them.

' China has laws banning harm to endangered animals, but none protecting other animals. Increasingly, a small but growing number of animal activists and pet owners in China are pushing to build a humane society and legislate animal protections.

' Following years of pressure by rights advocates, Beijing is this month mulling draft regulations to stop animal abuse, which will specify how animals should be raised, transported and for those eaten, slaughtered.

' Whether the first-ever move succeeds would be seen as a reflection of China's rising living standards being extended into an awareness for protecting animals, animal activists say.

' Lu Di, an activist who runs one of China's few shelters for animals which houses the paralyzed and blinded dogs and butchered cat, said a law is long overdue.

' "China is a serious disaster zone for animals," said Lu, a retired literature professor whose small three-bedroom apartment is stacked with cages housing nearly 100 abused and abandoned animals.

' "If you're weak, you would go crazy watching what happens here. If you're clear-headed, you would realize this cannot continue. To allow this to go on, [shows] we're definitely not a civil society."

' Stories of abuse abound, but are never investigated by police.

' In Beijing's Tongxian county, markets each day line up bound dogs in a row, pulling their front legs back as they are slit down the stomach, skinned and sold as dog meat while the other dogs watch whimpering and dazed in horror, Lu said.

' Customers standing by shout "I want this piece of meat, that piece of meat, or I'm waiting for the skin."

' "Not only do we kill them, in killing them, we let their own kind see what's happening and what awaits them. This is extremely cruel," Lu said.

' "When I pleaded with the local police to stop this, they said they have no authority to interfere as China doesn't have any laws banning the killing, or providing guidelines for the way of killing, selling or eating dogs."

' Even laws protecting animals at risk of extinction are frequently violated, partly due to poor enforcement and partly public ignorance.

' "I often encounter people in forests whose first response when they see a wild animal is `If I had a gun, I would shoot it,'" said Lu Tongjing, a former miner who has devoted his retirement to trying to save wildlife.

' Some of the worst violators are government officials, he said.

' "It's the officials who have guns. They go hunting for fun, but unlike the ethnic minorities who have lived in nature for generations, they don't know what's an endangered species and how to spot and avoid shooting a mother or yearling, which should not be hunted," Lu said.

' Lu Tongjing frequently travels to China's northern desert border areas to try to save endangered Asian wild camels and other wildlife.

' Wild camels on the Mongolia side of the border must migrate to an oasis in China's north-western Xinjiang region to give birth to baby camels, but a barbed wire fence at the border prevents them from crossing, he said.

' The fence is leading to a depletion in the camel population which has already dwindled over the years to only a few thousand, he said.

' During his trips, he has found endangered animals killed, their bodies tangled in barbed wire over which they had tried to jump.

' In the southern province of Guangdong, animal markets, where terrified screaming animals -- from dogs to civet cats and pangolins -- are beaten alive and boiled and skinned in front of customers, have operated for years, feeding the appetite for exotic foods by China's rich.

' The markets were only shut down last year when scientists found evidence suggesting the potentially deadly SARS virus might be transmitted from wildlife to humans.

' Despite the groundswell of animal rights activities, only days after Beijing newspapers reported the proposed animal protection regulations which would mandate that farm animals be killed with as little pain as possible, the Beijing government removed the draft law off its Web site.

' The Beijing Morning Post later quoted an official saying the law would not be passed for at least five years and shouldn't be publicized.

' Opponents, including economists, meanwhile argued China is not ready for such laws.

' "As soon as you talk about animal rights, you're talking about money. Our farms are small, poorly ventilated buildings. Our slaughterhouses are not modern. How can you expect a farmer in China to copy the West?" said Qiao Xinsheng, a legal expert at Wuhan-based Zhongnan Zhengfa University in east China.

' "This is unrealistic. If we want to apply Western standards to China, then many people in China would have no right to raise animals."

' "China just barely left the stage when people were wondering where their next meal will come from," Qiao said. "They can't think about animals yet." '

Mrs Elly Maynard, founder of the New Zealand charity Sirius GAO ( http://sirius.2kat.net ) responded to these arguments;

'I would like to say that there is no such thing as "beyond enforcement" when dealing with the treatment of domestic companion animals. All countries no matter where, must have fully working laws in place - there is absolutely no excuse for not having them and to state "as soon as you talk about animal rights you are talking about money" is absolutely ludicrous.

'The abuses being committed on cats and dogs in China is beyond comprehension!A full campaign with letters to the Chinese Government and Ambassadors globally stressing the need for such laws now - not in 5 years - is a matter of urgency!'

This is where you, our international friends and supporters, can help.

Please write to the Chinese Embassy or Consulate in your country. The contact details for their Embassies world-wide can be found at http://www.travelchinaguide.com/embassy/embassy_list.htm

Please feel free to email them, phone, snail-mail and fax.

We have enclosed a sample email below, but please write your own if you can. If English is not your first language, please write in your mother tongue.

SAMPLE EMAIL

Your Excellency

I was encouraged to learn that China is at last prepared to consider the creation of animal welfare legislation. This is of course long overdue since your Government does not deny the cruelty that is inflicted upon animals daily in a casual and blatant manner within your country.

My encouragement was however short-lived when I learned that the draft law had been removed from your Governments web site and that a Government spokesman stated that the law would not be passed for at least five years and should not be publicised.

China is regarded with disgust by the majority of citizens in the Western world and Asia due to its atrociously cruel treatment of animals in general, and not only those regarded as pets in Europe. Your country's bear bile farms are notorious throughout the world and the horrors of your fur industry twist even the strongest of Western stomachs. Your live meat markets where animals are kept and sold in barbaric and unsanitary conditions are (as you doubtless know) a source of disease, as was proven by the SARS epidemic that has recently resumed its global threat.

I beg you to urge your Government to take the opportunity of introducing animal welfare legislation to improve your nation's status in the eyes of the world. Please give this legislation meaning, and soon. There is certainly no justification for a five year delay.

Yours sincerely

Name/email address

For more information on Chinese animal abuse, please visit Sirius GAO - http://sirius.2kat.net

Our continued thanks to all of you for caring.

From all the team at ITD

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