Handcuffed, stacked on top of each other or hanging from sacks: Indonesian police foiled a shipment of 226 (!) dogs en route to the slaughterhouse.
Moncong diikat dan akan dibawa ke pejagalan, 226 ekor anjing berhasil diamankan.#PenyelamatanAnjing #Semarang pic.twitter.com/neRIrXGi8k
— Kompas.com (@kompascom) January 8, 2024
The incident took place in the city of Semarang on the island of Java. The police stopped a truck, about which they had received prior intelligence, and found the unfortunate dogs in its trunk, with their legs and mouths tied.
Police arrested the truck's five crew members, and they are expected to face charges of animal abuse and possibly for violating sanitation regulations: stray dogs can transmit diseases.
Indonesia is one of the few countries that still allows the sale of dog and cat meat for food, but a campaign against the practice has been gaining momentum in recent years. Last year, a notorious food market closed on Sulawesi Island. Several cities, including Semarang, have banned the pet meat trade through municipal regulations. This may be why the truck, loaded with the unfortunate dogs, tried to leave for the neighboring town of Sorcatra, where the sale is permitted.
"I received the information about this shipment back on December 23, but they managed to evade me," a local animal welfare activist told the news agencies. "Dogs and cats are not domesticated animals for food, so they should not be turned into food."
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