Please sign this petition to help these poor dogs and cats! Also write to the European Parliament.
This video explains it all:
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=xbXPYXe91QI Warning: Very Graphic and upsetting!!! In China every year millions of companion cats and dogs are stolen and skinned alive for their fur before dying slow deaths! It's a cheap multi million dollar industry for global trade.
The Chinese Government just says "that China looks upon dogs and cats as appropriate fur animals, and admitted that dogs and cats were NOT raised for the Chinese -- "they are raised for the European consumer and the American consumer"
It's just horrible how cruel they can be!!! I don't know how people can get away with it! These are people pets getting killed and they are living creatures who deserve to live! They didn't hurt anyone! It is just sickening that they can even think about harming animals, let alone killing them.
Australia, the United States, Switzerland and five EU member nations - Italy, Denmark, Belgium, France and Greece %u2013 have already banned imports of dog and cat fur. But the European Union as a whole has no such ban.
As you will be aware, on the 29th January 2007 the EU Council of Ministers unanimously supported fully to have a ban on dog and cat fur and approved of the proposal in principle.
A majority however objected, some quite strongly to exemptions being granted to this ban, particularly an exemption which allows the trade to continue unabated within the EU, as long as the skins are labelled as originating from cats and dogs that have not been bred or killed for fur production.
As the proposed ban is only applicable to fur from cats and dogs bred specifically for fur production, EU customs officers would not be able, legally, to stop fur from dogs and cats bred for meat or rounded up strays in countries such as China from entering the European market.
This exception defeats any efforts to prevent the inflow of cat and dog skins into the EU, by providing a gaping loophole that would be ruthlessly exploited. There is no doubt that Chinese furriers and traders would simply declare their skins to be by-products of meat production to evade the import ban, I therefore consider this exemption to be extremely serious and must be removed or there is no point to the overall legislation.
As your constituent, I respectfully ask you to oppose all exemptions and to vote within the relevant committee for them to be removed from this proposal. I would also ask you to persuade your peers to do the same, so that Europe can end up with a total and enforceable ban, minus loopholes.
I look forward to your positive response,
