`Penalties for animal cruelty’ strengthened… Amendment to animal protection law passed
Translation of Korean News: Yonhap News 7/3/2013
`Penalties for animal cruelty’ strengthened… Amendment to animal protection law passed
(Sejong=Yonhap News) Seung-Wook Kim reports.
Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MFAFF) announced on July 2, that an amendment to the Animal Protection Law which includes provisions such as banning dissemination of animal cruelty videos as its main contents has passed the National Assembly’s plenary session.
An official at the MFAFF stated, “The amendment is a merged version of legislative bills proposed by Saenuri party’s Han-Pyo Kim and Myung-Hee Yun and Democratic party’s Young-Rok Kim, members of the National Assembly and the intent of the law is to modify and supplement the current law in order to deal with issues such as cruelty during animal transport, spreading of animal cruelty videos through internet and more.”
The amendment clarifies the definition of cruelty to animals and it enables person who circulate animal cruelty videos to be fined up to 3 million Korean won (approximately $2,700 USD).
In addition, animal transporters’ terms of obedience that advised them not to cause suffering of animals in transit became a regulation of responsibility and a fine of up to 1 million Korean won (approximately $900 USD) can be imposed for violations.
In particular pet dealers must transport the animals directly to the consumer or through transporters in compliance with the regulation of obedience and in case of violation, both pet dealers and the transporters will be punished.
In addition, it added a basic principle that when slaughtering animals, unnecessary suffering should not be caused on them and when animals are buried under ground they should be in an unconscious state.
The amendments to the animal protection law will be enforced 6 months from the proclamation date in order to facilitate the modification of lower statutes and the provision on the companion animal transportation method will be enforced 1 year from the proclamation date to allow for the time it takes to upgrade the transporter’s transport vehicle and equipment.
Photo: CARE
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