Recently, the news of CCTV calling for legislation to ban animal abuse as soon as possible has attracted a lot of attention and support from netizens.
Many of you may know that CCTV's voice is actually in response to the recent news of a pregnant mother cat being doused with boiling water.
The cat-abuse incident, which took place in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, has already drawn the ire of hundreds of millions of netizens online due to its extremely bad circumstances.
A man actually doused a pregnant female cat trapped in a cage with boiling water in the street at night, and his crime was revealed on the spot as the cat's miserable cries attracted neighborhood residents.
However, he didn't feel guilty at all, and claimed that the cat had stolen his ham, so he wanted to "kill it".
When witnesses called the police, the man tried to throw the cat away to destroy the evidence. But luckily police arrived in time to take him away.
The mother cat was saved from the devil. However, when the public sent the cat to the veterinary hospital, they realized that the mother cat had four cubs in her belly,
but all of them were already dead, and 70 percent of the mother cat's skin was severely burned, and it seemed that she was only one step away from death.
After media coverage, a number of local experts from the province were also brought in to consult with the mother cat, however, because of the severity of her injuries, she ultimately did not survive...
Although the prohibition of animal cruelty is already a civilized society **** knowledge,
but for the abuser's punishment we have been only stay in the moral level condemnation, no legal punishment, and this also led to such a tragedy again and again, and again and again.
For example, what happened to the man who abused a cat?
-Because the man's disgusting crime of moral turpitude was exposed, his company fired him.
That's it.
Perhaps the man would still feel aggrieved that he wasn't just abusing a cat, not hurting anyone, so how come people were so angry, even to the point where he lost his job?
In fact, there are still a lot of people who think this way. They even think it's just a matter of mistreating a small animal. What's the big deal, and why is it such a big deal?
Despite the fact that every time there is an incident of cat abuse, people can only condemn the abusers morally,
They can only lose their jobs, but they can only look for a new one when the storm is over, and the tragedy will not be solved in the end.
Because there is no anti-animal cruelty legislation in China, there is still a legal gap in how to make animal abusers get their due punishment,
and even for some people, it is still a legal blind spot, thinking that it is not illegal to abuse cats anywhere.
This is why there has been a recent story about a Chinese man who was arrested for abusing stray cats in Thailand, and who said, "It's not against the law in my country," at the time of his arrest.
According to Thai police, Chi Hang, a Chinese man in his 30s, entered the country on Feb. 21, but has been stuck in Thailand because of the epidemic.
Since Oct. 5, he has stayed at three separate hotels on Thailand's Phi Phi Island.
And hotel cleaners found cat nails and cat hair in Chi's room while cleaning it, and even blood in the refrigerator.
And when police raided his hotel room, they found at least three abused cats inside.
A black cat had been shivering by the toilet sink.
And on the side of the sink were Chi's tools of the trade - nail clippers. The cats found had their nails brutally clipped until they bled.
The other cats had various injuries and one had its head shoved into a plastic bottle.
When police asked him what was going on, Chi also said he loved cats and brought stray cats to his room when he saw they had no home.
The reason he put the cat in the refrigerator was because he thought it might be hot.
He said the reason he clipped their nails was because they had bacterial infections in their nails, and for the cat that was covered in a plastic bottle, he explained it was because he was afraid the cat would bite him.
However, police found photos and videos of him abusing the cats on his cell phone, and that he hadn't even taken pity on the stray cats to bring them back, but simply to abuse them.
After the key evidence was discovered, he pleaded with Phi Phi police, claiming to know nothing about Thailand's animal cruelty laws, and even claiming that such behavior was not illegal in China and that there was nothing wrong with it.
However, Thailand's Anti-Animal Cruelty Act, passed in 2014, stipulates that 20 types of behavior against animals, such as harming and abusing animals, or even neglecting pets' illnesses and not bringing them to the doctor, are punishable by up to two years in prison plus a 40,000 baht fine if found guilty.
The Krabi court has now sentenced Chi to six months in prison and a fine of 15,000 baht (about 3,200 yuan), suspended for one year.
Afterward, he was escorted to Phi Phi Island police station to await his immediate repatriation by the tourist police.
In fact, in addition to Thailand, more than 100 countries in the world have now enacted the Animal Cruelty Act, and some countries even impose heavier sentences in serious cases of animal cruelty.
For example, in 2016, a 26-year-old California man was found to have abused and killed 21 innocent cats over a 2-month period, causing public outrage across the city.
In October 2015, a man named Robert Farmer was sleeping in his car when police officers on patrol accidentally found the body of a tiger calico cat next to him.
When the police also took a closer look, they realized that he also had a bunch of cat collars of unknown origin in his car. The police immediately woke Robert up and thoroughly inspected his vehicle.
In the car, police also found a lot of cat hair and blood, and even a set of bloody gloves and a knife.
It was only after an investigation that it was discovered that a number of cases of missing domestic cats reported in the Cambrian Park neighborhood in the last 2 months were in fact linked to him. Not only does he steal house cats, he also abducts stray cats from the neighborhood back to his car.
At first Robert admitted to killing four cats, but after a blood test, police confirmed **** 21 cats died horribly at his hands.
Many of the cats died as a result of external forces. And even more horrifyingly, some autopsy reports showed signs of sexual assault on the cats' bodies.
At the time, the coroner also diagnosed that Robert had an antisocial personality. Doctors said he lacked basic empathy and remorse. This behavior of harming animals could even develop into harming humans.
The man was eventually sentenced to 16 years in prison for cat abuse and sexual assault of animals, and he was not allowed to be near cats or other animals for even 10 years after his release.
So in effect legislating to protect animals is actually protecting humans themselves.
Because when heartless abusers find no pleasure in abusing animals, and lose all reverence for life, perhaps their next target will be human beings.
No amount of angry denunciation by the good will change the egregious behavior of the morally bankrupt.
The protection and reverence for life also requires the same legal constraints and norms.