Mrs S Quance
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
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HKK7/1
Date 26 November 1974
I have been asked to reply to your letter of 15 November to the Prime Minister with which you enclosed an article about cruelty to dogs in Hong Kong.
You will no doubt have seen from my letter to Mr Hicks, quoted in the article enclosed with your letter, that under Hong Kong law it is an offence to slaughter any dog for food whether for human consumption or otherwise.
The main difficulty is that Hong Kong is a predominantly Chinese society (over 98% of the population are Chinese) and the eating of dog-meat is traditional in South China. However, notwithstanding this inherent problem the Hong Kong Government is doing its best to eradicate the slaughter of dogs. I mentioned in my letter to Mr Hicks the various penalties that face anyone convicted of offences under the Hong Kong laws governing cruelty to animals. Persons found guilty of cruelty to animals can be sent to prison for up to 6 months, a fairly severe sentence.
You may be interested to know that during the past 3 years, 83 prosecut- ions have been instituted under Regulation 22 of the Dogs and Cats Regulation which I referred to above. Convictions were recorded in 80 cases and fines up to HK$250 (about £21 stg) were imposed. In addition, out of 15 prosecutions instituted under Section 3 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance, 14 resulted in convictions and fines averaging HK$194 (about £16 stg) being imposed.
So I hope that you will agree that the above information shows that the Hong Kong Government are trying hard to tackle what is a difficult and deep-rooted problem.
Hare coursing in the United Kingdom is a matter for the Home Office rather than the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and I understand they will be replying to you separately about this question.
cc: Mrs Bessie Cross, No 10 Downing St.
A L Wotton
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
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