Yahoo – AFP,
22 June 2015
Animal-loving
Yang Xiaoyun (C) pays about 7,000 yuan (US$1,100) to save
around 100 dogs in
Yulin in southern China's Guangxi province on June 20, 2015
(AFP Photo)
|
Yulin
(China) (AFP) - A Chinese woman has paid over $1,000 to save 100 canines from
being eaten during a dog meat festival, media said, as activists have lashed
out at the event labelling it cruel.
Animal-loving
Yang Xiaoyun paid about 7,000 yuan (US$1,100) to save around 100 dogs in the
southern city of Yulin on Saturday, web portal Netease reported.
Vendors
wait for customers to buy
dogs in cages at a market in Yulin
in southern
China's Guangxi province
on June 21, 2015 (AFP Photo)
|
Reports
said that Yang, 65, plans to rehouse the dogs at her home nearly 2,000
kilometres (124 miles) away in Tianjin.
Pictures
posted online showed her browsing a market in Yulin where the dogs were kept in
cages.
Activists,
who say the festival is cruel, have in the past travelled to the city to hold
demonstrations, sometimes buying dogs to save them from the cooking pots.
Locals have
been quoted as saying that animals are killed in a humane way for the festival,
where their meat is then served with lychees.
The
majority of "meat dogs" in the country are stolen pets and strays,
according to an investigation published this month by Hong Kong-based charity
Animals Asia, though eating dog is unusual in most parts of China.
Around 30
million households in the country are estimated to keep dogs as pets, helping
to fuel the growing animal rights movement.
This year
the festival has been targeted by British Comedian Ricky Gervais, who posted a
series of messages on Twitter with the hashtag "StopYuLin2015".
The city's government has tried to distance itself from the event.
Cooked dogs
hang at a stall in Yulin in southern China's Guangxi province
on June 21, 2015
(AFP Photo)
|
The city's government has tried to distance itself from the event.
"Some
residents of Yulin have the habit of coming together to eat lychees and dog
meat during the summer solstice," the city's news office wrote on Sina
Weibo, a Chinese Twitter equivalent.
"The
'summer solstice lychee and dog meat festival' is a commercial term, the city
has never (officially) organised a 'dog meat festival'," it added.
Eating dog
is not illegal in China, but the government called on meat vendors to respect
food safety laws.
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