Video of Chinese schoolchildren torturing dog sparks outrage online
Police helping school to identify pupils although China has no laws to prevent animal cruelty
Police in eastern China are trying to track down at least two schoolchildren seen torturing a dog to death in a graphic video that was widely circulated on social media this week.
The two-minute clip, which the South China Morning Post deemed too upsetting to share, shows the youths repeatedly beating and kicking a small black dog as it yelps helplessly, Thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.
The torture ends only when one of them pours oil on the stricken beast and sets it alight.
The incident in Xuzhou, eastern China’s Jiangsu province, appears to have happened at night. The assailants appear to be of secondary school age, and at least one of them is a boy.
During the brutal attack, they are heard repeatedly shouting: “We’ll stamp you out … crush you … torture you to death”.
The footage sparked outrage online.
“Regardless of if you love dogs or not, torturing animals is cruel. These kind of students are cold blooded animals,” one person wrote.
“This is abusive. It has nothing to do with if you love dogs or not,” said another.
“The students with no brains should be sent to detention!” said a third.
News website 163.com on Wednesday published a statement by the 13th Middle School of Xuzhou City confirming the youths seen in the video were its pupils. The school expressed its regret for the incident and said an investigation had been started.
Although China has no laws against animal cruelty, police are helping to identify the pupils, the report said.