Animal welfare activists and police in the city of Surabaya, East Java conducted a raid of a canine slaughterhouse on Sunday, which had reportedly been operating for four decades.
The activists say they received a tip from locals about the slaughterhouse a couple of weeks ago, and notified the police about the suspicion. Christian Joshua Pale, a renowned animal activist in Indonesia, said he posed as a buyer and obtained evidence that the house does indeed sell dog meat.
Four dogs were rescued when police raided the slaughterhouse early on Sunday morning. Early police investigation revealed that the slaughterhouse opened 40 years ago, killing around 40 dogs each month.
The dogs, Christian said, would be clubbed until they become unconscious before they’re torched alive.
Two people who ran the slaughterhouse were apprehended by police. One of them was identified as the owner of the facility, SP, who didn’t seem to see a problem with the dog meat trade.
“As far as I know it’s not against the law, because dogs aren’t protected animals,” he said after the raid.
SP is technically correct in the strict sense that Indonesia’s wildlife protection laws are afforded only to endangered animals and those with great cultural value to the country. However, it must be noted that killing animals (aside from agricultural purposes) or torturing them are absolutely against the law.
At any rate, though they have yet to be formally slapped with charges, the two perpetrators may get up to 15 years in prison each for trading goods that may be detrimental to the public.
Though it is not eaten widely throughout Indonesia, dog meat is popular in certain regions and demand for it fuels an industry that animal rights activists have denounced as not just cruel but also a threat to public health.
The Dog Meat Free Indonesia (DMFI) coalition of animal welfare organizations, has been lobbying the central government heavily to ban the dog meat trade in the country since 2018. In 2019, they sent a letter to President Joko Widodo calling for immediate action and the letter was signed by more than 90 Indonesian and international celebrities including Ricky Gervais, Cameron Diaz, Chelsea Islan, Jane Goodall, Sophia Latjuba, Simon Cowell and Ellen DeGeneres. The coalition also has a global petition signed by 1.1 million people all over the world. That said, there is still no national ban of dog meat, as prohibitions have been passed on regional levels thus far.
As a Muslim-majority nation, the vast majority of Indonesians do not eat dog (it is considered haram or forbidden in Islam) but it is popular among certain people in some parts of the country including Sulawesi, the capital Jakarta and the popular tourist island of Bali.
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