Authorities yesterday announced the end of the “brutally cruel” dog and cat meat slaughter at a notorious animal market on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi following a years-long campaign by local activists and world celebrities.
The Tomohon Extreme Market is to become the first such market in Indonesia to go dog and cat meat-free, the anti-animal cruelty group Humane Society International (HSI) said.
Images of dogs and cats being bludgeoned and blowtorched while still alive had sparked outrage.
Photo: AP
The permanent end of the slaughter and trade was announced yesterday by Tomohon Mayor Caroll Senduk.
HSI said it would be rescuing all the remaining live dogs and cats from the slaughterhouse suppliers and taking them to sanctuaries.
The Tomohon Extreme Market had previously been touted as a tourist attraction, and listed on TripAdvisor as a destination that also sells cat meat and the carcasses of wild and protected species such as bats, snakes and other reptiles.
HSI and Indonesian groups operating under the banner of Dog Meat Free Indonesia are campaigning to end the trade in live dogs for human consumption as rabies could spread to humans during the slaughter or contact with infected meat.
Videos shot by the campaigners at two markets in North Sulawesi Province in 2018 showed dogs cowering in cages, as workers pulled the howling animals out and bludgeoned their heads with wooden batons. Often still moving, the animals are then blasted with blowtorches to remove their hair in preparation for butchering and sale.
The welfare groups called the treatment of the animals at the markets “brutally cruel” and like “walking through hell,” generating sympathy among Indonesians and around the world.
International actors and celebrities in 2018 appealed to Indonesian President Joko Widodo to close the markets, saying if Indonesia joined other Asian nations that have already banned the trade, it would be “celebrated globally” and end a stain on the nation’s reputation.
Actress Cameron Diaz, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, talent spotter Simon Cowell, comedian Ricky Gervais, Indonesian pop singer Anggun and musician Moby are among the more than 90 celebrities listed in the letter.
“These animals, many of them stolen pets, are subjected to crude and brutal methods of capture, transport and slaughter, and the immense suffering and fear they must endure is heartbreaking and absolutely shocking,” the letter said, prompting Indonesia’s central government to issue a regulation saying that dog meat is not food and thus local administrations should act to ban the trade.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS