Yulin, a pug among the dogs torn from the Chinese slaughter | VIDEO
On the 21st of June, the biggest dog meat market in China begins. Meanwhile the stalls fill up with slaughtered and maltreated dogs heaped one above the other. Many of them are stolen, demonstrated by a pug wearing a collar, that was saved from slaughter by Davide Acito and his association, who sent their first video to Le Iene
A few more days till the beginning of the Yulin festival, the biggest dog meat market in China, which starts Friday 21th June, on the occasion of Summer Solstice. But there are already many dogs, destined to become food for the Chinese, that Davide Acito, with Action Project Animal association, is snatching from the jaws of death.
Last year, in Giulia Innocenzi and Francesca Di Stefano’s reportage, which you can see above, we documented with shocking pictures what happens in Yulin’s market. With Davide Acito and his association we reported with hidden mini cameras the abuses and the conditions in which these dogs live. Thousands of cats and dogs are slaughtered every year in honour of a tradition in the south of China. A cultural thing, of course, as we do with “porchetta”, but this one revolves around dog meat.
That’s a special kind of ruthlessness: cats and dogs are taken with an iron pincer by their neck, stunned with numerous beatings and left to bleed out on the streets. With no hygienic precautions!
And like every year, also this summer Davide is coming back to China in order to save as many dogs as possible from the terrible chinese market, keeping us Iene updated with the situation, as you can see in the videos below.
Among the dogs saved from the slaughter there’s also a pug with a collar, as Davide shows. For the Yulin festival, as a matter of fact, lots of dogs are stolen from villages or from the streets in order to be killed, cooked and exposed on the stalls full of dead dogs, as you can see in the photogallery sent exclusively to us from Davide Acito who’s in China. And even if the festival hasn’t officially started, there are already lots of dog retailers.
Yulin, nel mercato della carne di cane in Cina
Below you can see a seller who’s cooking a dog under the scared eyes of the other puppies that are waiting for their demise while watching the other dogs die.
But fortunately, also in Yulin something seems to be moving against this custom. “The numbers have decreased a lot”, explains Acito, who already announced last week a decrease in the number, on the occasion of the closing of the biggest dog meat market in the South Korea. “Regarding the city of Nanning (in the south of China, 200 miles away from Yulin, ndr) we’ve gone from 12 sellers to 3”. A good result, that should not be overestimated. The conditions remain terrible, the dogs are kept in horrible conditions, lots of them are sick”, explains Acito. Also dog meat can be dangerous for humans because of the risk of contracting diseases like rabies and leptospirosis. And you just have to take a look at the gallery below to see with your own eyes the terrible hygienic conditions of the cages in which these dogs are forced to live.
Yulin, le condizioni dei cani destinati alle tavole cinesi
Associations around the world, and lots of celebrities, from Matt Damon to Joacquin Phoenix, have partecipated to #StopYulin movement in order to stop the slaughter of dogs in China.
In order to stop this custom, and consequently the atrocity that dogs are forced to suffer before becoming food for Chinese, Change.org launched a petition that already counts 3 million of subscribers (click here to sign the petition). Davide Acito courageously showed the banner with the petition against Yulin festival in China, as you can see in the picture above.
To help Davide in the dog rescue operation, you just have to click here to make a donation to his association Action Project Animal.