PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA — The Hermit Kingdom is never out of the limelight for long and this time it's because Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un has declared dogs 'decadent' and 'bourgeois.'
Kim Jong-Un has barked the order for all North Korean citizens to hand over their pet dogs so they can be butchered for food.
In July, the young dictator proclaimed that owning a pet is now against the law, denouncing having a dog at home as 'a tainted trend of bourgeois ideology', in other words, a symbol of capitalist 'decadence.'
South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reports that although pet ownership was long frowned upon in North Korea, the state had seemed to relent since the late 1990s when the rich of Pyongyang started owning pets as symbols of superiority.
Speaking to the South Korean newspaper a source said that Kim's foot soldiers identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully seizing them.
So where are all the dogs going?
After being rounded up, some are sold into the dog meat trade whilst others go to state-run zoos.
The outlawing of pets may just be a pretense to feed Kim's starving nation.
A recent UN report stated that as many as 60 percent of North Korea's 25.5 million people are facing 'widespread food shortages', shortages that have been worsened by international sanctions imposed on the regime for its nuclear missile programs. The South Korean outlet also reported that pet owners are 'cursing Kim Jong-Un behind his back'; a risky move as the refusal to comply with Kim will almost definitely be taken as an act of defiance.
It would seem that all hope is lost for our four-legged friends in North Korea, and in this case, I hope Kim doesn't hold himself to the same standards.
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