Thousands of cats and dogs have been killed, burned and skinned alive at the annual Chinese Yulin festival – in spite of the government’s pledges to put a stop to the practice regarded across the globe as barbaric and outrageous.
The festival saw hundreds of meat traders come to the country’s southern Guangxi province to celebrate the summer solstice.
Queues were stretching outside 300-seat eateries such as the Yulin No. 1 Crispy Dog Meat restaurant, which sells the newly slaughtered animals for $6 a kilogram, The Independent reported.
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Earlier, about 500,000 people signed a petition to end the festival, and hundreds of thousands of tweets were posted with the #StopYulin2015 hashtag.
On Sunday, protesters blocked the streets, raided slaughterhouses, and bought the animals set to be slaughtered.
One of the demonstrators, Peter Li from the Humane Society China group, told The Telegraph that he witnessed that traders “were blow-torching the carcasses to make them shiny and ready for shipment to restaurants”.
"There were some dogs still alive in wire cages, but they looked exhausted, emaciated and dirty,” he added.
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Another protester, 65-year-old Chinese woman Yang Xiaoyun, paid about $1100 to save 100 dogs.
Last year, the local authorities promised to prohibit the event and the use of words “dog meat”.
Killing cats and dogs isn’t against the law in China, but the majority of animals are strays, so the authorities have repeatedly warned the population about potential health risks.
In March, Li Jun Qing, head of Yulin's Food And Drug Administration, stated that the event had not been supported by the government – however, the festival went on as planned.
In 2014, 10,000 dogs and 4,000 cats were slaughtered during the festival, according to the official estimates.
The festival was started in 2009-2010 by the country’s meat traders.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 5 minutes later[^][v]#571,493
No.
Metæ (OP) replied with this 11 years ago, 7 minutes later, 12 minutes after the original post[^][v]#571,495
@previous (B)
Why not? It's part of China's exotic culinary heritage. Are the dog carcasses blowtorched before after or during the dog's death?
Anonymous B replied with this 11 years ago, 3 minutes later, 15 minutes after the original post[^][v]#571,497
@previous (Metæ)
I can agree that there is no logic in eating some animals but no others, but I just have too much of an emotional attachment to dogs.
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 2 hours later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#571,536
The most depressing was a pic I saw yesterday, of a puppy trying to play with the sob that was about to skin it alive. To think that someday there'll be 2 billion of these parasites. Forget about global warming, the Chinese are gonna eat every creature on earth in a couple of decades.
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 10 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[^][v]#571,541
maybe we should NUKE the damn chinks before they ruin the planet..
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 1 minute later, 3 hours after the original post[^][v]#571,547
Xiaoqing Yan replied with this 11 years ago, 4 hours later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#571,944
@OP whom is this Indy character and why would he be contributing to the opus of MAtthew MIller?
kook !!mCVqftDha replied with this 11 years ago, 4 minutes later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#571,948
@571,864 (The Owl !KThEOwLwbU)
Yes. They have a huge problem with child sex slaves. Many cant even get hqrd for grown women, because they were raised by overbearing mothers.
The Owl !KThEOwLwbU replied with this 11 years ago, 1 day later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#572,297