A comparative analysis of the British reaction to ‘animal cruelty’ in South Korea and in Spain, 1986–1990

Abstract This article seeks to provide a comparative analysis of the reaction of the British public and the British government to reported cases of animal cruelty in South Korea and in Spain in the late 1980s by examining relevant government papers produced by the British Foreign Office which are housed in the National Archives in Kew, England. As South Korea geared up to host the 1988 Summer Olympics, various British media publications printed articles depicting the dog-slaughtering and dog-eating practices in Korea in lurid detail. Outraged and dismayed by such reports, prominent animal rights organisations as well as ordinary members of the British public organized nationwide petitions and sent letters to the Korean Embassy in London, to various Members of Parliament, to the Foreign Secretary, to the Prime Minister and even to Buckingham Palace protesting against such Korean practices and demanding that the British government apply pressure on the Korean authorities to introduce anti-cruelty legislation and issue a threat to boycott the Seoul Olympics should the Korean government refuse to take appropriate action. The British government replied that government ministers personally shared the British public’s “disgust” at the practices mentioned, that the Korean authorities were aware of the “revulsion” felt by the British people and that the British government would monitor the situation and raise the issue with the Korean authorities whenever suitable occasions arose. Around about the same time, the British media also published stories about local festivals in Spain where donkeys and other animals were being either crushed or strangled to death in addition to the traditional bullfighting. The British public’s fury at these reports was on a par with the reaction towards the Korean practices. But the British government’s response to the Spanish instances were markedly different to that demonstrated towards the Korean cases. The British authorities stated firmly and unequivocally that they could not interfere in the internal matters of another country, had no intention of using European Economic Community legislation to curb such practices and advised all protesters to send their correspondence to the Spanish embassy in London, even though the embassy officials had informed the Foreign Office that they would not deal with such communications.