Animal Welfare Law in China and the "Cat Killer"

Second Chance Animal Aid is totally opposed to the torture and abuse of any animal for any purpose. This includes the recent horrific animal “squishing” by Heilongjiang Province nurse Wang Jue. Although using the excuse of depression after a failed marriage to allow her to be convinced to film this disgusting, fetish video, SCAA believes there is no excuse whatsoever that can justify such blatant acts of cruelty.

Note: both the nurse and the video producer have lost their jobs (the producer was a cameraman at a provincial TV station), but without any animal welfare legislation in place in China, neither have been arrested; in the United States and most of Europe, there would have been at least a minimum fine imposed and/or arrest, conviction and jail time. (See article below for information on recent convictions in the U.S. for similar crimes.)

Perhaps, on the only upside of this barbarism, public revulsion against the recent spate of acts of cruelty to animals in China (which have been highlighted and well publicized on the internet recently) seems to be generating a momentum for the enactment of animal welfare laws, which presumably will allow for the punishment of people involved in acts of deliberate cruelty.

According to Shanghaiist Blog it would seem likely that laws may first be enacted at regional level - and according to the Hainan Animal Protection Association, welfare laws will be enacted on Hainan Island by the end of this year.

Any movement towards the enactment of welfare laws for animals in China is good news - and anything at all would be better than the current situation.

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2005:

Video law holds up in first test against animal fighter

PITTSBURGH--Reaching a unanimous verdict in only 45 minutes,
a federal jury on January 13, 2005 convicted video distributor
Robert Stevens of three counts of selling depictions of illegal
cruelty to animals across state lines. The case was the first court test of 1999 legislation introduced by Representative Elton Gallegly (R-California). U.S. Senior District Judge Alan N. Bloch rejected federal public defender Michael Novara's contentions that the law violated Stevens' First Amendment right to freedom of expression, and that it was misapplied because the law was introduced to address "wanton cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex." The law prohibits the interstate distribution of videos or films depicting illegal cruelty to animals, if they are without "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or art value." Stevens, 64, of Pittsville, Virginia, in 2003 sold two videotapes of dogfights and one video of a "hog/dog rodeo" to investigators for the Pennsylvania State Police and USDA Office of the Inspector General. Stevens advertised the videos for sale in the Sporting Dog Journal, whose publisher James Fricchione, 34, was convicted in March 2004 of six felonies and five misdemeanors for allegedly promoting dogfights. Setting Stevens' sentencing for April 21, Bloch ordered him to surrender to the court any pit bull terriers he owns by January 24, and to refrain from any involvement in training, breeding, selling or otherwise dealing with pit bulls. Stevens also may not associate with any other persons involved in such activities, and may not sell any equipment that might be used to train dogs to fight. Brian Haaser, USDA Office of the Inspector General chief special agent-in-charge of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Region, said in a prepared statement that the "landmark investigation and conviction will open the doors" to further prosecutions of alleged dogfighters based on seizures of videotaped evidence. The Gallegly bill was introduced in response to public outrage over Internet sales of "crush videos," depicting animals being crushed to death by scantily clad women and transvestites. The traffic came to light when British Customs in mid-1997 intercepted several videos mailed by one "Jeff Vilencia" of "Squish Productions" in California. British Customs took the videos to Martin Daly of the Royal SPCA. Daly eventually enlisted investigative help from Cassandra Brown of the London Sunday Telegraph. Unaware of that case, then-America Online "Animals & Society" host Susan Roghair, now producer of Animal Rights Online, independently discovered several web sites which promoted and sold crush videos. Roghair in October 1997 sought help from ANIMAL PEOPLE, PETA, AnimalTalk host Dick Weevil, and Ohio animal rights attorney Shawn Thomas--who turned out to be pursuing a parallel investigation of his own, after finding some of the same web sites. On October 6, 1997, at Thomas' request, ANIMAL PEOPLE postponed publishing an article about crush videos to avoid jeopardizing the investigation. Cassandra Brown in November 1997 scooped ANIMAL PEOPLE. Learning thereby of the British investigation, ANIMAL PEOPLE introduced the British and American investigators by e-mail. Unknown to any other investigators, the Suffolk County SPCA was separately closing in on crush video producer Thomas Capriola, 30, of Islip Terrace, Long Island. Two days after Capriola was arrested in May 1998, ANIMAL PEOPLE introduced the Suffolk County SPCA investigators to Daly, Thomas, and Roghair. Capriola in December 2000 pleaded guilty to misdemeanor cruelty to animals and fifth-degree possession of marijuana, and was sentenced to serve 280 hours of community service with three years on probation. The original investigation brought the August 1999 arrests and eventual plea bargain convictions of "crush video" star Diane Aileen Chaffin, 35, of La Puente, California, and producer Gary Lynn Thomason, 48, of Anaheim. Each drew a year in jail and three years on probation. Convicted in Britain were Craig Chapman, 27, Christine Besford, 26, Sarah Goode, 22, and Tharaza Smallwood, 22. Chapman was in May 2002 sentenced to serve two years in jail. The three women drew four months each. All four defendants were also fined and banned for life from keeping pets.