Howls over new 1 dog policy

2006-12-01 16:51

Beijing - Amid fears of police storming into homes and calls for neighbours to inform on each other, a controversial new "one dog" policy in China's capital is eliciting howls of anger from pooch lovers.

Beijing authorities, concerned by the growing number of dogs in the city and a rising incidence of rabies, have decreed that households can raise only one canine.

Dogs taller than 35cm have been banned, and all dogs must now be registered and vaccinated or face being taken from their owners.

While the new rules themselves have angered Beijing's dog owners, fear of old-style Communist Party discipline being used to enforce the policy has also raised hackles.

In an echo of the tumultuous 10-year cultural revolution that turned friends and relatives against each other, the city government urged residents to monitor their neighbours and inform on them if they keep rogue dogs.

"Any individual has the right to criticise ... anyone who is doing anything against the regulations, and report them to the residential committee, the village committee or the relevant department," the policy stated.

Residents are also worried that police may begin entering and searching homes, a common enough problem for human rights activists in communist China but not normally a fear for middle-class pet owners.

"People are scared that the police will actually start coming into homes and confiscate dogs," said a man surnamed Li, one of about 100 dog breeders at Beijing's Aisida canine market.

Police have insisted that all illegal dogs will be handled humanely, but few owners believe them, rather fearing that seized dogs could be put in sacks and beaten to death with sticks, as has happened in earlier campaigns, or even buried or burned alive.

According to Beijing press reports, there are around one million dogs in Beijing, only 550 000 of which are registered.

- AFP