Lawmaker Roy Kwong Chun-yu, who helped organise the event, said 'Now we can show the international community that we are ready and we will take action to protect animals'.
NG KANG-CHUNG: ‘Thousands of people braved the scorching heat of Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon to march in support of animal rights as they called for harsher punishments for animal abusers. Some protesters brought their pets, while others carried placards with slogans that said “stop animal abuse”, and “10 years in jail”, as they walked in 32.6 degrees Celsius temperatures from Chater Garden, in Central, to the government’s headquarters in Admiralty…
Democratic Party lawmaker Roy Kwong Chun-yu, who helped organise the event, said the turnout was unexpectedly big. “That gives us a boost,” he said. “Now we can show the international community that we are ready and we will take action to protect animals”… Public concern about animal abuse rose recently after a horrendous cruelty case at an animal shelter in Ta Kwu Ling, where a quarter of some 150 dogs and cats were found to have been starved to death…
From 2016 to 2018, the government received an average of about 300 suspected animal cruelty cases a year, and there were a total of 47 successful prosecution cases. The heaviest sentence handed down by the court since 2006 was 16 months in prison. In her policy address last year the city’s leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor promised to amend the law to protect animal welfare. In Hong Kong, more than one-tenth of families keep pets’. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: