News is emerging from North Korea that the leader of the country Kim Jong-un has declared that domestic pet dogs are a symbol of capitalist ‘decadence’ and to this end has ordered that dogs in Pyongyang be rounded up. The owners of these dogs and owners are apprehensive that their pets are being used to solve food shortages.
Kim Jong-un announced back last month that to own a pet would be illegal and denounced those having a dog at home as possessing ‘a tainted trend of bourgeois ideology’. A source has told South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper: ‘Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down. Some of the dogs are sent to state-run zoos or sold to dog meat restaurants’.
A recently released UN report stated that as much as 60 percent of North Korea’s population are facing ‘widespread food shortages’ as well as noting that these problems have been made worse by international sanctions imposed on the countries regime for its nuclear missile programmes.
Dog meat has historically been a delicacy on the Korean Peninsula. Although the tradition of eating dogs is gradually fading out in South Korea an estimated 1 million dogs are reared on farms to be consumed every year in South Korea.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper is reporting that pet owners are ‘cursing Kim Jong-un behind his back’. Although any who refuse to comply with the authorities could be interpreted as an act of defiance against Kim Jong-un.
Pork and beef are a luxury for most ordinary people and the severe flooding caused by monsoon rains have resulted in the leader to feed victims with his own personal grain reserves. Nearly 1,500 acres of rice fields were flooded as well as 179 housing blocks and 730 single-story homes being destroyed.
As a result of this, some are predicting that the culling of the dogs of Pyongyang may be designed to stave off hunger in the coming months with another source saying that Kim Jong-un’s decision to use his reserves have grain as an ‘SOS signal to China’ for emergency aid.
[give_form id=”1772″ show_title=”false” show_goal=”false” show_content=”below” display_style=”modal”]
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
[sibwp_form id=4]
