[Intax]

Stop Korea from legalizing dog meat consumption
One person one letter to the Mayor of Seoul, Korea

KAPS (Korean Animal Protection Society) seeks help from the Asian Community

Website: ¤@¤H¤@«Hµ¹Áú°ê·s¥ôÁ`²Î¡@ªý¤îÁú°ê¦¨¬°¥ßªk¶}©ñI LOVE DOGS!¹¥Îª¯ ¦×ªº°ê®a - Displays images of the dog's living conditions and slaughtering scenes. Do not scroll down to the end if you cannot resist such graphical images.

*Translated manually to English from Traditional Chinese*
This year, March 24, Capital city of Korea, Seoul has announced a “Dog Meat Hygiene Management Policy”, which lists dogs as a “livestock”, and as expected that, after Korea’s parliamentary elections end in April, and holding a related hearing in May, a proposal will be made immediately to the Central Government to amend the “Livestock Products Processing Act”, officially legislating that dog meat be listed as a livestock product. Because of such unsavory Act, KAPS gathered in front of Seoul City Hall on March 25th and 26th to protest.

In recent years, the Korean public had been educated not to “list” dogs as edible animals by the nation’s animal protection group. Other than continuingly protesting and complaining within the nation, at the same time, various national animal protection groups seek for help from the Asian communities: Taiwan, Thailand (Bangkok), Philippines (Manila) that currently have banned the killing of cats and dogs for food, and in addition to countries of Singapore, Japan and India which had never had any issues with cats and dogs meat. We call for their unison, to alarm the Korean government and community not to make this mistaken decision, causing humanity to take a step backwards on the road to civilized development.

EAST (Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan) and Dogchd (犬髖關節狗友會) promotes the restrictions of consuming dog meat and invites legislator, Wang Shin-Nan and President Tian-Chiu together to pursuit the support for KAPS, CARE (Companion Animal Rescue Effort), KAAP (Korean Association for Animal Protection). On the 8th of April, 10:00AM in the morning, a press conference was held at a NGO guildhall, to announce to the public images and video clips, regarding the inhumane breeding, selling and slaughtering of the dogs. Representative of CARE, Poh Soo-Yoon says: Korean’s “meat dog” (dogs bred for consuming) are bred in conditions which are in ultimately horrible state, the dog’s foods are from kitchen wastes, including decayed breads. Generally, male dogs are bred for 7 months and then slaughtered for their meat, whereas female dogs are forced to breed 2-3 times, and thereafter, slaughtered. As dogs have the complexional ability of sensing and alertness, the “dog farmers” prickle the dog’s ears, in their early ages, therefore deafening the dog, in order to complete their task more efficiently. Furthermore, as dogs naturally require free movement, to prevent them from fighting, multiple dogs are locked up in cages, from the beginning when they were bred and, till they are transported to the slaughterhouse. As viewed from the photos, multiple dogs are stacked up into cages in which they could hardly move. Many dogs are concaved into a “U” letter within the cage. Not just “local dogs” (indigenous dogs) are slaughtered for meat, small toy puppies such as Yorkshire Terriers and Maltese are also used for human consumption.

A dog from the “farm” can value up to 30000-50000 won ($31-51 US). At the market, they are slaughtered and are valued at 1700 won ($1.72 US) per catty (half a kilogram). Therefore a golden retriever or any other relevant sizes can be sold 150000-200000 won ($152-203 US) for their meat.

Human already consumes enough protein. In recent years when SARS hit the planet, the reason behind this was because of human greed for meat. No matter at which point of view, “Food culture is already not a valid reason for consuming dog meat.

Poh Soo-Yoong says: During 1984, the Seoul’s legislative Act classified dog meat as abhorrent food therefore restricts the trade of dog meat. But from then onwards, Seoul had never prosecuted any individual for the trade of dog meat, therefore the situation worsened. Every year 2 million dogs are slaughtered for their meat in Seoul, and the government does not take responsibility for such inhumane act. Therefore, in order not to take this responsibility any further, the government decides to legislate the killing of dogs, which is utterly cruel. After the new Korean president, Lee Myung-bak is officially announced his presidency, he emphasizes on modern globalization however, when confronted about the dog meat issue, he considers the “Stone Age theory” where dog meat consumption was “introduced”. Currently, Korea has 1 million residents petting dogs, but if the Legislative act becomes successful, there will be more cases of cruelty to animals. Korea will be identified as the first barbaric country to legalize dog meat as livestock, thus by the international eye, Korea may be viewed negatively and may even suffer for economic and trade losses.
*Translated manually to English from Traditional Chinese*

These are the images of the website itself and how to send an email to the Korean Government.





Note: the email for both, the Korean President and Seoul Mayor are different due to different political positions on the first paragraph.

If outlook express isn’t available, just copy the text (separate texts for both, the Korean President and Seoul Mayor) and send it to the following email addresses:

webmaster@president.go.kr - Korean President (Lee Myung-Bak)
ohsehoon@seoul.go.kr - Seoul Mayor (Oh Se-Hoon)

Be sure to include your name, country and date signed by this format accordingly if you are sending it manually:
Signed=*Name in Full*
Country=*Country Name*
Date=*dd/mm/yy*

We appreciate many signatures as possible in order to stop this cruel slaughtering of dogs and prohibit the effect of the legislation occurring in May. And if possible, we would really appreciate you to transfer this article to as many people as you can.

Thank you.