AN ANNUAL dog meat festival in eastern China, in which thousands of dogs are killed and eaten to mark a military victory 600 years ago, has been banned after public outrage at the slaughter of man’s best friend.
According to local legend, the festival marks the time when the founder and first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Zhu Yuanzhang, laid siege to a fort, but every time they attacked the dogs would bark and give them away.
The festival, in Hutou village in Qianxi, became a regular market fair some years ago, and the practice of skinning dogs and eating them over a three-day period continued.
“However, vendors began to butcher dogs in public a few years ago to show their dog meat is fresh and safe, as a way to ease buyers’ worry that the meat may be refrigerator-preserved or even contaminated,” said a report by the Xinhua news agency.
Web users took to social networking sites to criticise the carnival and call on the local government to intervene and stop the cruelty. In a survey on Weibo – the Chinese equivalent of the banned Facebook social network – 91 per cent of over 12,000 users called for the festival to be halted.
The Chinese have eaten dog meat for 7,000 years and it is widely believed to have medicinal qualities such as an ability to lower blood pressure, as well as to boost virility.
“The government’s quick response should be encouraged. I hope eating dogs will not be a custom there any more. It’s not a carnival, but a massacre,” wrote Junchangzai, a Weibo user who launched an online campaign denouncing the dog-eating carnival.
His posts were retweeted a staggering 100,000 times.
The vast majority of locals also opposed the festival, but not everyone was happy.
"It's our tradition, which the government has no right to ban. The dog-eating carnival is like the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) to me," one villager told the Qianjiang Evening News.