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Starved, stuffed and slaughtered! Dogs face cruelty during China's Yulin festival

Many of the victim dogs are believed to have been pets stolen from their owners.

By :  sadhguru jaggi vasudev
Update: 2016-06-21 07:22 GMT
A city in southern China went ahead with an annual dog-meat eating festival despite heavy criticism and protests from animal rights activists.
Dog meat restaurants have been forced to take the festival indoors and large-scale open air dog-meat consumption is no longer seen.
Activists said rallies held around the country to oppose dog eating, as well as outrage on social media from the growing ranks of dog lovers, are already having an effect.
Promoters say eating dog meat during the summer helps ward off the heat and maintain a healthy metabolism.
As many as 10,000 dogs are believed to be killed during the event, which falls around the summer solstice that arrived on Monday this year.
They are stuffed in cages, and trucked to the city about 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) south of Beijing in the province of Guangxi, often without food or water.
Many of the dogs are believed to have been pets stolen from their owners or simply picked up off the street.
An estimated 10 million to 20 million dogs are killed for their meat each year in China, and the Yulin event has become a lightning rod for criticism.
Activists bought dogs from dealers who had been planning to slaughter them, while local residents complained that outsiders were ruining what they consider a local tradition.
The event has come to symbolize the cruelty and potential for spreading disease associated with the largely unregulated industry.
Vendors slaughtered dogs and cooked their meat in dozens of restaurants across the city of Yulin.
Many of the victim dogs are believed to have been pets stolen from their owners.

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