Caged Activists Protest Dog and Cat Consumption
Members of In Defense of Animals to Confine Themselves at Korean Consulate

San Francisco - Holding signs that read "Dogs Are Our Friends Not Food," caged members of In Defense of Animals (IDA) will urge the Korean Government to enforce laws prohibiting the beating, hanging, burning, electrocution, and boiling conscious cats and dogs for consumption.

Date: Friday, October 15, 2004
Time: 12:30-2:00 p.m.
Place: Korean Consulate, 3500 Clay Street

Why do activists have their hackles raised over South Korea's treatment of animals? South Korea's laws prohibiting the consumption of dogs and cats gets completely ignored and disregarded by law enforcement. Before dogs are killed for meat, they are often strung up by their legs and beaten. Dog butchers extol the virtues of their product, linking the adrenaline rush dogs experience as they are bludgeoned to death to enhanced male virility. Cats fare no better-viewed as pest animals, they are boiled alive so their "juices" can be extracted for supposed health tonics which butchers claim can be used to treat rheumatism. 

The protest comes after last week's announcement by the Korean Government to amend the current Animal Protection Law shifting responsibility for the humane care of dogs and cats to animal guardians and animal sellers and to increasing fines for offenders. The market for dog meat is thriving in Korea and procedures to strictly enforcement the ban on dog meat were absent from the proposed amendment. Despite the government's latest move, which animal protection groups applaud, protectionists are calling on the government to enforce its laws to protect dogs and cats killed for food and medicine.

"It's inconceivable that 'man's best friends' are boiled alive, beaten, butchered, and eaten illegally under the knowing watch of the Korean government," says IDA president and founder Elliot M. Katz, DVM.

For more information on IDA and its Korean Animals Campaign, please visit www.IDAUSA.org. For more information on Animal Freedom Korea, please visit www.animalkorea.org.