New Delhi, June 20 – Even before the celebration of summer solstice could start, residents in China’s Yulin city have begun killing and eating dogs. A report in the Daily Mail said the residents started celebrating the summer solstice, which is on Saturday, with the traditional dog meat and litchis feast-in a bid to avoid protests by animal rights campaigners.
Pictures circulated widely on Chinese microblogs showed Yulin city residents enjoying a feast of dog mean and litchis while other photos showed skinned, cooked dogs hanging from hooks at street stalls or piled on tables.
According to the Yulin tradition, eating dog and litchis and drinking liquor on the solstice is supposed to make people stay healthy during winter. However, the Yulin government has sought to distance itself from the feasting, saying it is not officially endorsed.
The government has even denied the formal existence of such a festival, saying it is a culinary habit practised only by some businesses and people, said the report. “Negative coverage is growing – dog theft, criminal activities,
food hygiene issues, and rabies fears – not to mention the division in society between those for and against the festival – together these have brought significantly more negative publicity to Yulin than economic benefits,” the Mail report quoted Deng Yidan, an activist with Animals Asia, as saying about the controversial festival.
As a result of public protests, another dog eating festival in eastern Zhejiang province, which was hundreds of years old, had to be cancelled in 2011.
-INDIA TODAY
