Yulin: Cooking Dogs and Cats Alive Does NOT Bring Health and Good Fortune!
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Sponsor: The Animal Rescue Site
Each year, tens of thousands of dogs and cats are tortured and killed in the world's worst "celebration" of the summer solstice.
Since the 1990s, one remote city in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China has been celebrating the year's longest day by abducting, caging, torturing, killing, and eating tens of thousands of dogs & cats in the hopes of reaping good heath and fortune.
Colloquially called the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, this "celebration" of the summer solstice is an aberration of the greatest proportions, and has been widely criticized for years. In 2014, the local Yulin government released a statement, amid protests and widespread furor, claiming the festival does not exist. However, reports and photographic documentation from the area show that the slaughter is very real, and shockingly cruel.
In the days leading up to the solstice, which occurs each year around June 21, tens of thousands of dogs & cats, some stolen directly from their families, are forced into cramped cages and stacked for shipment via overstuffed trucks to Yulin's slaughterhouses and street markets. If they survive the inevitable shock, starvation, and dehydration from the trip, they are nonchalantly butchered, barbecued, or boiled alive.
The Yulin government claim they care about public opinion, yet refuse to end this tragic massacre. Let's call on Guangxi Zhuang's Chairman, who oversees the Yulin government, to unilaterally put an end to this horrible tradition.
The Petition:
Dear Chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference,
The Yulin municipality's summer solstice tradition of torturing, slaughtering, and eating tens of thousands of stray and abducted dogs and cats is an atrocity that has transcended the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, because of its flagrant cruelty toward domestic animals, and has reached global concern.
Across the world there has been widespread outcry against the Yulin solstice festival, yet the Yulin government has denied its very existence. Reports from the area have documented otherwise, and have shown that huge numbers of dogs and cats are being beaten, tortured, and brutally killed in the name of health and fortune.
Domestic animal cruelty is an unconscionable crime that tarnishes the integrity of the entire human race. When we fail to treat our closest faunal companions humanely and respectfully, we also fail to demonstrate our intelligence and empathy — the two greatest tools we have as a species. Without our empathy and intelligence, cats and dogs, who co-evolved with us for tens of thousands of years, would not exist in the forms and numbers necessary for this very slaughter to take place.
As the Chairman of Guangxi, you have the power to put an end to this horrific practice, and to prevent these family pets and homeless domestic animals from being savagely butchered in the name of a superstition. Dog and cat meat, like all meat, is high in calories and low in nutrition. Health and fortune do not come from eating meat, nor do they come from the violent killings of animals that we call our own.
As the Chairman of Guangxi, you have the power to unilaterally put an end to this horrific practice. Please use your influence to actively save lives, rather than to passively take them. The cats and dogs whose lives are on the line will thank you, and with luck someday someone will do the same for you.
Thank you.
