History of the Campaign

In Taiwan, no law prohibits cruelty to animals. Recently, PETA's president, Ingrid Newkirk, went to Taiwan and saw for herself the horrors these dogs suffer every day. Officials tell us that mass dog drowning in the city of Keelung has stopped as a result of Ms. Newkirk's trip to Taiwan, but we await confirmation. Meanwhile, unofficial reports continue to surface. It is reported that, in most cases, garbage men, who are responsible for dog roundups, discard living dogs by methods that require the least amount of work. Some reports describe poison being sprayed onto dogs, causing them to die slowly after they lick themselves. They report dog electrocutions lasting 20 minutes while the dogs scream in pain and smoke rises from their fur. Some citizens tell us that dogs are caged and then left to starve or are dropped into abandoned mining shafts and left to die.

On September 10 in 13 U.S. cities and eight countries (including Canada, France, England, Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, and Australia), PETA released never-before-seen videotape footage and photographs of dogs suffering in Taiwan pounds. Hundreds of caring people joined vigils in support of the first-ever animal protection bill in Taiwan. In London, more than 100 people turned up to speak out, while in Italy, a group of activists stayed up through the night holding a candlelight vigil. The success of the demonstrations was apparent in the reports of stories in several Chinese and Taiwanese newspapers about the demonstrations. The Central News Agency (the Taiwanese wire service) stated that "...the Legislative Yuan is expected to pass the law governing the protection of animals during the current session... Under the proposed law, the government's responsibility in handling stray dogs will be further strengthened." And the China Times reports that the Council of Agriculture announced that it will make the Animal Protection Bill a priority in the year's legislation.

Other Updates

On September 16, a PETA member met with Mayor Tsai of Hsinchu on an official visit to Cupertino, Calif., and urged him to make changes within his city to stop the suffering of dogs and to ask the legislature to pass the anti-cruelty law. Local PETA members called the Cupertino mayor and asked him to encourage Mayor Tsai to work for the protection of the dogs.

Many celebrities have sent letters to the Legislative Yuan supporting the animal protection bill. We are extremely grateful to them for using their voices to speak for the dogs who cannot speak for themselves. Many were featured in an ad, still others have written personal letters, including: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Steven Seagal, Jackie Chan, Wolfgang Petersen, Olivia Newton-John, and Rue McLanahan.

In the short time since the ad ran, other celebrities, including Richard Donner, Luciano Pavarotti, Thomas Gibson (TV's "Greg" from Dharma & Greg), Alicia Witt, Tim Curry, Bea Arthur, Anthony Michael Hall, DeDee Pfieffer-Fein, and Jorge Rivero, have all added their names in those asking for the Legislative Yuan's passage of the animal protection bill.