DogExpress
Dog meat is considered a delicacy in North Korea and parts of South Korea. But imagine having to hand over your pet dog to the meat shop. This traumatic order has come from Kim Jong-un, say reports.
Dogs, especially pet dogs, are family to the homes they belong to. But try telling that to the eccentric leader of North Korea. If reports in the media are to be believed, North Korea is facing a food supply crisis and its controversial leader has reportedly ordered his people to hand over their pet dogs so they can be turned into meat for restaurants.
According to a report in the New Zealand Herald, the move by the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is thought to be aimed at quelling the rising discontent among the public as the economic situation in the secretive country is crumbling and food shortages have become a huge worry.
Poor Own Cattle, Rich Maintain Pet Dogs:
Kim Jong-un also seems to be playing to the sentiments of the ordinary and poor class as the latter own only pigs and other livestock while it is generally wealthy in the nation’s capital Pyongyang who maintains domesticated pets including dogs. This pet ownership is also seen by North Korean authorities as a symbol of capitalist “decadence”, say reports.
According to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, a source reported that Kim banned ownership of pet dogs and in July denounced having a dog at home as “a tainted trend of bourgeois ideology”.
Households with Pet Dogs Identified:
“Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down,” the source added. “Some of the dogs are sent to state-run zoos or sold to dog meat restaurants”.
Pet owners are “cursing Kim Jong-un behind his back”, but there is little they can do, according to the source.
“Ordinary people raise pigs and livestock on their porches, but high-ranking officials and the wealthy own pet dogs, which stoked some resentment,” the source told the South Korean newspaper, according to the NZHerald.
Dog Meat, a Delicacy in the Koreas:
Dog meat has long been considered a delicacy on the Korean Peninsula, although the tradition of eating dogs is gradually fading out in South Korea. But it is not a dead tradition as it continues to survive in pockets. An estimated 1 million dogs are reared on farms to be consumed every year in the South.
A recent UN report stated that as many as 60 per cents of North Korea’s 25.5 million people are facing “widespread food shortages” that have been worsened by international sanctions imposed on the regime for its nuclear missile programs.
Flooding due to heavy rains has caused paddy crops to fail and the coronavirus pandemic has made food supply suffer. China too faces food scarcity due to floods, drought, early coronavirus crisis:
North Kore’s ally China has a similar food shortage problem. Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua recently asked the governors of each province in China to make sure crop yield is not lowered this year or they would be punished, even dismissed. And when Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited northeastern Jilin Province on July 22, he told the local government the same, says Epoch Times.
Source: Times Now
Please Note: This article is not edited by DogExpress Team!
in Chandigarh, India. 
