Washington Post: Beijing Crackdown on Dogs Sparks Protest

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Beijing Crackdown on Dogs Sparks Protest

By CHARLES HUTZLER

The Associated Press

Saturday, November 11, 2006; 8:05 AM

 

BEIJING -- Demonstrators angry at a crackdown on dogs staged a noisy

protest in China's capital on Saturday, decrying police killings of

dogs and new limits on pet ownership.

 

About 200 police strung up tape to cordon off the roughly 500

demonstrators who waved signs and chanted near the entrance to the

Beijing Zoo. Many clutched stuffed animals and wore buttons that said

" Stop the indiscriminate killing. "

 

Demonstrators, angry over a crackdown on dogs, hold banners demanding

a stop to mass killings to control pet populations as they stage a

protest in China's capital Beijing, Saturday Nov. 11, 2006. About 200

police kept watch and strung up tape to cordon off the roughly 500

demonstrators, as they held up stuffed animals, waved signs and

chanted " Down with Dog-raising Restrictions " near the entrance to the

Beijing Zoo. Many wore buttons that said " Respect Life, Oppose

Indiscriminate Killing. " (AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel) (Elizabeth

Dalziel - AP)

 

 

 

Police detained at least 18 demonstrators in nearby vans for several

hours before releasing them, protesters said. Police declined comment.

 

Touching off the demonstration were new restrictions that limit

households to one dog and ban larger breeds. Police in recent days

have gone through city neighborhoods, seizing unregistered dogs and

beating some of them to death, witnesses said.

 

" All of us who have dogs to walk are feeling very anxious, " said Wu

Jiang, a protester and pet shop owner who has a yellow Labrador

retriever. " Most of us only dare come out at night and even then we

have to be really careful. "

 

Keeping pets has been controversial in China for decades. Banned as a

middle-class habit during the radical Cultural Revolution of the

1960s and '70s, dog-raising surged anew with the introduction of

free-market reforms.

 

Complaints about vicious dogs, barking and excrement-covered

sidewalks prompted Beijing to impose height limits in 1995, banning

dogs taller than 14 inches from the city center. Many cities have

enacted similar measures.

 

A sharp rise in rabies cases this year led to a renewed clampdown

across China. State-run newspapers reported Saturday that 326 people

died from rabies in October, again making it the leading cause of

death among infectious diseases.

 

To enforce the crackdown, police in many parts of the country have

beaten stray or unregistered dogs to death, sometimes in front of

their owners.

 

Beijing responded by raising fines for having unregistered and

unvaccinated dogs, adopting the new one-dog-per-family rule and

extending the ban on larger dogs from the city center to encompass

the surrounding suburbs.

 

" We're asking city residents to go along with us and if they discover

any unregistered or stray dogs to report to us by phone, " the Beijing

News quoted the city's vice director of agriculture, Ren Zonggang, as

saying in comments on the government's Web site.

 

In some cases, protesters said, dog-owners have been given as little

as one week's notice to get rid of their large dogs or move to

outlying districts. Protesters said the measures are not only

inhumane but wrongly place the burden of punishment on the dogs, not

the owners.

 

" The main point here should be the way dog owners raise their dogs, "

said Jeff He of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Beijing,

who watched the protest from beyond the cordon of yellow and black

police tape.

 

Organizers of the protest said they had applied for a permit but had

been refused. Though the demonstration was largely peaceful,

anti-riot squads in helmets and dark uniforms were dispatched,

plainclothes police milled through the crowds and large numbers of

uniformed police sat in trucks down the street.

 

Police tried to prevent reporters from taking pictures and warned

protesters that they could suffer serious consequences for their

actions.

 

" It was like martial law out there, " said Wu Jiang, the pet shop

owner. " We said to them 'We're taxpayers. Why are you treating us

this way?' "

 

Police used loudspeakers on a nearby van to urge protesters to take

their complaints to a special desk set up inside the zoo. Nine

representatives of the protesters were taken inside the zoo to

discuss the protest with police, protesters said.

 

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