Paul McCartney boycotts China

Sir Paul McCartney has said he will never perform in China after watching a secret video of dogs and cats being killed for fur. The ex-Beatle was given a preview screening of undercover footage taken in a fur market in Guangzhou, southern China.

Dogs and cats are shown being thrown from the top deck of a converted bus onto concrete pavements. In another piece of footage, cats are seen squirming inside a sack before being thrown into a vat of boiling water.

Smiling, laughing workers are also filmed senselessly beating the animals to death, reports Scotsman.

According to BBC News, the former Beatle also said he would boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics after viewing the footage taken in a fur market in Guangzhou, southern China.

&to=http://english.pravda.ru/culture/2003/03/19/44647.html' target=_blank>Sir Paul, and his wife Heather, looked aghast and close to tears as they watched the footage for a special report for the BBC's Six O'clock News to be screened on Monday.

They urged people not to buy Chinese goods.

"This is barbaric. Horrific," said Sir Paul. "It's like something out of the dark ages. And they seem to get a kick out it. They're just sick, sick people.

"I wouldn't even dream of going over there to play, in the same way I wouldn't go to a country that supported apartheid. This is just disgusting. It's just against every rule of humanity. I couldn't go there."

In another piece of the harrowing footage, shot this summer by an undercover investigator connected to the People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (Peta) campaign group, cats are seen squirming inside a sack which is then thrown into a vat of steaming water. They are boiled to death and skinned by a fleecing machine similar to a launderette tumble drier.

Some of the 28-minute footage is too gruesome to be broadcast. McCartney added: "How can the host nation of the Olympics be seen allowing animals to be treated in this terrible way?"

Heather McCartney, herself a vociferous animal rights campaigner added: "I've seen so much footage where these poor creatures are clearly alive when they're skinned. And for what? For fashion? It's sick.