The Chengguan Are Killing Pets in China!

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Walking your dog down the street should be a pleasure, not a threat to life and liberty. In China, however, simply taking a pet out for a walk may be all the reason a local Chengguan needs to brutally beat and kill the animal, possibly coming after the distraught owner if met with any resistance.

The Chengguan, deputized members of the Chinese City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau, are charged with making sure pets are licensed. They work all over the country, from the poorest villages to the fastest growing cities. But, their tactics often include violent displays, bludgeoning dogs, cats, and other pets with pipes and bamboo sticks as their owners are held down, throwing the corpses onto a truck, and burning them in mass graves.

This behavior has earned the Chengguan the status of some of the most hated officials in China, according to The New York Times [1], and their notoriety extends from cruelty to animals, to assault on humans in some cases. While anyone without immediate access to their animal’s registration papers when the Chengguan ask may be held aside while their pet is destroyed, those who resist face physical retribution.

In 2013, a man using his phone to record Chengguan inspecting a street peddler’s cart was subsequently beaten with hammers until he spit up blood, Radio Free Asia reports [2], later dying from those injuries at a hospital. And resistance toward the Chengguan seems to be growing, as there have been rising incidents of the agents themselves being targeted in revolts against their actions.

Fight Dog Meat [3], a website founded by rescue worker Michelle Brown, has equated the brutality of the Chengguan to gang violence. Brown cites a report from August 4, 2016, when “the Alum Town government of Padang village, ordered a dog killing team to go door to door and kill every pet dog they could get hold of after a local man died of rabies days earlier. The air was filled with the screams from helpless pet owner’s as their dogs were forcibly removed and bludgeoned in front of them. Children wept uncontrollably.”

It is illegal in Beijing to own a dog with shoulders taller than 35 centimeters (almost 14 inches), The New York Times [4] reports, while 40 specific breeds, including Dalmatians, Collies, Weimeraners, and Boxers, are banned categorically, labeled to be “large and vicious.” But it is also clear that the Chengguan’s treatment of animals goes well beyond enforcing a regulation.

Sign to tell China’s Ministry of Public Security to protect these animals immediately, implement practices which ban the City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau’s brutal and deadly tactics when confronting pet owners.