Monday, October 23, 2017

Amanda Whitfort Interviewed on the Need for an Animal Cruelty Police Force in Hong Kong (SCMP)

Yupina Ng and Louise Moon
South China Morning Post
7 October 2017
On the night of September 7, 2013, more than a thousand Hongkongers, some in tears, gathered outside the government’s headquarters at Tamar calling for stricter regulations to stop animal cruelty and a dedicated police unit to enforce those rules.
     The rally was prompted by a shocking case in which a four-month-old stray cat was found in Tsuen Wan with one of its legs cut. Police later arrested a couple on suspicion of animal cruelty, but did not press charges due to “insufficient evidence”.
     In the past four years, Hong Kong has done little to make animals better off, according to activists and law experts. No animal police squad has been set up, but more cruelty cases have been exposed, mainly by social media users.
   Experts said the recent case of a man throwing and kicking a dog in a Tuen Mun supermarket showed that current loose regulations were not serving as sufficient warnings for would-be offenders.
     “The main problem is that we still don’t have a duty of care,” said Amanda Whitfort, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s faculty of law...  Click here to read the full article.

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