Korea: Dogs to be eaten during world cup?

A demonstration in front of South Korea’s Parliament building by animal rights protesters intends to make the parliamentarians inside aware of the plight of their canine friends. Waving photographs of tail-wagging dogs, these allies of Man’s best friend burnt effigies of two members of parliament who have backed the continued consumption of dog.

Traditionalists are not impressed. The country has 6,000 restaurants which serve dog, while three million of South Korea’s 47 million classify the dish as “delicious”. They claim that in other nations, such items as pigeons, rabbits, snails or horse are consumed. Furthermore, they claim that Korea is not the only country in which dog meat is eaten, the others being the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and China.

During the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, the presentation of dog was suspended by a law which prohibited the preparation of “foods with bad presentation” and Sepp Blatter, the President of FIFA, has called on the South Korean government to do the same this time.

There is no legislation prohibiting the sale of dog in Korea at present, hence the debate in Parliament.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru