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China Drafts New Law Forbiding the Eating of Cats and Dogs

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  • China Drafts New Law Forbiding the Eating of Cats and Dogs

    The drafting of the "Animal Protection Law", now renamed "Anti-Cruelty to Animals Act," this expert advice on draft regulations, illegal consumption of dogs, cats, or selling dogs, Maorou will be fined from 5,000 to individuals and impose 15 The following day detention, and ordered a statement of repentance.


  • #2
    Re: China Drafts New Law Forbiding the Eating of Cats and Dogs

    Chinese legal experts call for ban on eating cats and dogs

    Widespread and ancient practice of eating dog meat increasingly distasteful for China's growing affluent, pet-loving middle class

    Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
    guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 January 2010 13.29 GMT

    Caged cats after being rescued by China Small Animal Protection Association from a market in in Beijing where cats are traded for meat and fur. Photograph: AP


    Chinese legal experts are proposing a ban on eating dogs and cats in a contentious move to end a culinary tradition dating back thousands of years.

    The recommendation will be submitted to higher authorities in April as part of a draft bill to tackle animal abuse.

    In ancient times, dog meat was considered a medicinal tonic. Today, it is commonly available throughout the country, but particularly in the north where dog stew is popular for its supposed warming qualities.

    In recent years, however, such traditions are increasingly criticised by an affluent, pet-loving, urban middle class. Online petitions against dog and cat consumption have attracted tens of thousands of signatures. Videos showing the maltreatment of farmed dogs have spurred protests at markets where the animals are bought and sold.

    But the drafters of the new proposal want far more drastic measures, which would oblige law enforcement authorities to close down thousands of dog restaurants and butchers which supply the meat.

    According to the draft, illegal sale or consumption of pets would incur a maximum penalty of 15 days in prison for individuals or a 500,000 yuan fine for businesses. Public security bureaus would be obliged to respond to hotline calls from the public about violations.

    "We are proposing that all dog and cat eating should be banned because it is causing many social problems," said Chang Jiwen, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who heads the drafting team.

    He said recent murders and thefts related to the dog meat trade showed that it had become a source of tension, while the economic impact of a ban would be small because an increasingly affluent population was less dependent on dog and cat meat.

    The proposal reflects changing public opinion and international input. Drafters at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have been consulting for more than a year with Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the US-based International Fund for Animal Welfare.

    But the plan for a dog meat ban has stirred up fierce debate between animal welfare groups and defenders of traditional values.

    "I support this proposal. Whether you judge this as a question of food security or emotions, there is absolutely no necessity in China for people to eat dogs and cats," said Zeng Li, the founder of the Lucky Cats shelter in Beijing. "We need something more than moral pressure. Beijing's dog restaurants get their meat mainly from vagrant and stolen dogs. In the suburbs, dogs are **** and slaughtered in front of buyers."

    Online critics said it was hypocritical to protect only dogs and cats, and that the government should focus on human welfare before protecting animals.

    "This is absurd. Why only dogs and cats? How about pigs, cows and sheep," wrote a poster going by the name Mummy on the Xhinua news agency website.

    "I hope the experts went to see what laid-off workers and people in rural areas have to eat. They should pay more concern to problems that people really care about," said another contributor under the name Starfish.

    Even before the pet meat ban, the draft bill had already provoked controversy. Initial plans for a comprehensive animal welfare law had to be dropped in the face of criticism that human living conditions ought to be the priority at this stage in China's development.

    The focus has now been narrowed to prevention of animal abuse, which is defined as inflicting unnecessary pain and brutality. Even so, it is far from certain that the draft will be adopted by the government or the National People's Congress.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/26/dog-meat-china
    "Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear."
    -Nelson Mandela

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    • #3
      Re: China Drafts New Law Forbiding the Eating of Cats and Dogs

      Eat a dog, catch rabies?



      A disease outbreak leads to new questions about a widespread Chinese culinary practice.
      Kathleen E. McLaughlin- GlobalPostPublished: June 2, 2009 17:21 ET

      BEIJING — There are a million moral and ethical arguments against eating dogs.
      Westerners like to make these arguments, while Chinese who enjoy the meal refute them with a polite scoff. The dogs you eat, they say, are different than those you keep as pets. The meat is healthy, especially in winter. But a growing body of evidence could make everyone think twice, as new studies emerge indicating that putting Fido on a plate is potentially harmful and even deadly to humans.
      China has a rabies problem. The deadly disease has spiked here in recent years and its troubling rise shows no sign of abating. In 2007, there were 3,302 confirmed human rabies cases in China, nearly 21 times the number found from the entire period between 1990 and 1996, when rabies was largely controlled. Periodic dog culls in rabies-hit areas have not stopped its spread and the mass killings often lead to public ill will. The far northeastern town of Heihe was forced last week after public outcry to reverse its plan to kill every dog in the city, instead allowing each family to keep one small dog.
      As the debate over the dangers of pets and strays rumbles on, a growing number of studies point not to the country’s burgeoning pet population as the source of its problem, but rather to mass dog farming and slaughter. Even if they don’t have rabies, there is a good chance that dogs bound for the dinner plate are unhealthy.
      “There is certainly more risk of rabies in the dogs caught up in the meat trade, where they are caged transported and kept in the markets en masse,” said Jill Robinson, the founder and CEO of the Animals Asia Foundation. “Many are wounded as a result of inappropriate handling and the abuse they receive at the hands of the traders, and the rabies virus can easily spread through bites or scratches or even from saliva entering open wounds.”
      Robinson, whose organization rescues farmed animals in China and across Asia, said a recent mission to save 149 dogs from the meat markets in Guangdong Province proved eye-opening about illness. The group had to euthanize 100 of the rescued dogs, mainly for disease. There were no confirmed rabies cases, but most had distemper.
      In a March 17 study from Hanoi published by the PLoS Medicine magazine, researchers pointed to two cases of human rabies in Vietnam where the patients were believed infected while butchering a rabid animal — in one case a dog, the other a cat. In 2006, Philippines media reported two cases of people dying of rabies after eating dog meat.

      “Dogs are the main reservoir for human rabies, and the raising, butchering, processing and consumption of dogs should be regulated and controlled,” the researchers in Vietnam wrote.

      In China, nobody is quite so open about the dog-meat trade and its potential dangers, likely because it’s so culturally sensitive. Even the most diehard fans know the habit is frowned upon elsewhere. Though there are no clear numbers, Robinson’s group estimates that 18 to 80 million dogs are eaten every year in China.

      Chinese scientists investigating the rabies problem were reluctant to talk about the dog-meat issue, saying only that large dog farms create special hazards.

      A recent Chinese study also mentions two separate cases of human rabies infection in this country among people who were infected while butchering or handling dog carcasses. In that study, published by medical researchers in the journal “Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases,” researchers noted that the vast majority of rabies cases occurred in rural areas, and were mainly contracted through dog bites in places where dog farming and ownership is unregulated. In other words, the Pekingese pups of Beijing and Shanghai are not likely to morph into Cujo.

      The solution, since Chinese diners don’t appear willing to give up dog meat any time soon? Education and vaccinations, plus more pressure, Robinson said.

      Still, she said, “No government in the world has devised ‘humane’ methods of raising and slaughtering dogs and cats en masse and, if we were to endorse this route, we would undermine decades of work by welfare groups in other countries of Asia who have successfully brought the consumption of dogs and cats to an end.”

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      • #4
        Re: China Drafts New Law Forbiding the Eating of Cats and Dogs

        Activists Save Pet Dogs from Chinese Cooking Pots

        April 18, 2011

        Hundreds of dogs being trucked to Chinese restaurants were spared a culinary fate after about 200 animal lovers mobilized to stop them ending up on dinner tables, state-run media said on Monday.

        A truck crammed with the dogs was forced to stop Friday on a highway in eastern Beijing by a motorist who swerved his car in front of the truck and then used his microblog to alert animal-rights activists, reports said.

        The dogs, many apparently stolen from their owners, were being transported from the central Chinese province of Henan to restaurants in Jilin province in the northeast, the China Daily said. It said 430 dogs were rescued, while the Global Times put the number at 520.
        ...
        The consumption of dog and cat meat, both of which are believed to promote bodily warmth and are thus popular in winter, remains widespread in China despite a surge in popularity as pets.

        However, earlier press reports have said authorities were looking into drafting a law that could outlaw the practice.

        Full text:
        "Safety and security don't just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear."
        -Nelson Mandela

        Comment

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