China: Official Who Beat Corgi to Death Has Been 'Criticized and Educated'

Two municipal health workers in southeast China’s Shangrao city recently filmed beating a woman’s pet corgi to death with a crowbar while she was away from her home undergoing a mandatory coronavirus quarantine have been “criticized and educated” by local authorities, China’s state-run Global Times reported Sunday.

“The official notice released after the case said that local authorities had ‘criticized and educated’ those personnel involved and ordered them to ‘sincerely apologize’ to the dog’s owner,” Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, noted in an op-ed published on November 14.

“I can fully empathize with the strong emotions some people feel when they see the pet dog clubbed, especially more and more people are now pet owners themselves,” Hu wrote. “In this context, it is rational to see many criticize such practices in comments.”

“What’s more, the local authorities in Xinzhou have also admitted the misbehavior. As a matter of fact, when I saw this video, I was uncomfortable,” the editor revealed.

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Hu referred to an incident that took place in the Xinzhou district of Shangrao on November 12. A woman identified only by her surname, Fu, told local media and posted a blog post online about the killing of her pet corgi by Shangrao health workers disinfecting her apartment to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Fu was away from her home at the time because she and all of her fellow residents had been ordered by Shangrao authorities to enter a state-run quarantine camp on November 11 after city health workers allegedly detected a single new case of coronavirus at the housing complex.

“Fu … witnessed the beating through an app on her phone connected to her home security camera and used a speaker embedded in the camera to beg the workers to leave her dog alone, but her pleas were ignored,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported November 15, citing a local media report from Shangrao.

“Ms. Fu said she heard the dog crying off-camera and later saw the workers carrying a yellow bag away after the whimpers stopped. Blood could be seen on the ground afterward, she said,” according to the report.

Chinese society has been slow to adopt the pet culture common in the West, where dogs and cats are often beloved as extended family members. Domesticated animals such as dogs are still technically classified as “livestock” across much of China. Southern China’s Yulin city is infamous for hosting an annual “summer solstice dog meat-eating” festival.

“Pet dogs, especially expensive breeds such as corgis, have grown in popularity as status symbols and companions among China’s middle class and wealthy urbanites. Last April, China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs proposed that dogs in the country should be reclassified as ‘companion animals’ instead of ‘livestock,’” WSJ observed on Monday.

“The ministry proposed the change in light of ‘the public’s attention and love for animal protection,’” the newspaper noted.

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