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Inside the twisted ‘cat torture ring’ sweeping across social media
'This is one of the most horrific acts in the history of animal rights.'
metro.co.uk
Student punished for alleged cat torture at university
A student at China Jiliang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, has been punished after being accused of torturing and killing a dozen cats, according to local authorities.
www.chinadaily.com.cn
Man accused of boiling cats alive attacked by vigilantes and forced to eat poo
WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Law enforcement has done little to prevent sickening animal abuse videos made in China, where there are few laws to protect domestic animals
Don't read further, open spoilers, scroll right, read more tweets on quoted accounts etc. if you are of a sensitive disposition.
Overview
On a blurry screen, a kitten cowers behind a curtain as the shadow of a man looms overhead. He reaches out, grabs the cat by the tail and stamps down on it.
The horrific footage, seen by Metro, is said to show what goes on in an alleged ‘cat torture ring’ dedicated to the abuse and killing of animals.
In China, where the video was filmed, pets can occasionally be seen as pests rather than much-loved members of the family. Dogs have been doused in hot oil, unwanted puppies buried alive and disabled cats abandoned on the street, according to charities who work in the country.
But the perpetrators behind such horrific acts aren’t worried about being caught, because animal cruelty is not punishable by law in China.
However, one group of vigilante cat-lovers is determined to change that.
"There are no words that can describe the amount of anger I feel," says Rachel*, a cyber activist at Feline Guardians Without Borders, a group made up of people from across 30 countries who have secretly joined online messaging boards where alleged abusers gather.
Rachel – who doesn’t want to reveal her real name due to safety concerns – became aware of Feline Guardians Without Borders in May 2023, after several viral videos highlighted the treatment of cats in China. Since then she has infiltrated... Telegram to keep tabs on perpetrators.
"The amount of evil in those groups exceeded anything I could have imagined," Rachel, who is in her 40s, tells Metro. The last video I saw was of a cat tortured with an electric drill. It was posted to their [the cat torture ring’s] Telegram group. Their discussions are vile. They discuss how to amputate a cat’s legs without it bleeding to death. The abusers then post their 'works' to the Telegram chats, and I, along with other undercover volunteers in those groups, watch cats die in horrific ways every day."
While Rachel observes the videos with ‘great anger and despair’, she remains silent to avoid being detected. She lies in wait and hopes the abusers will reveal details about their personal lives, which Feline Guardians Without Borders then use to their advantage.
A protest outside the Chinese Embassy in London, 4th May 2024
While they can’t force Chinese authorities to take action, they can contact the alleged abusers’ places of work, family or friends in a bid to shame the individuals.
A recent video posted on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter, showed a student beating a white kitten with a clothes-hanger. The young man, while not punished by the authorities, was expelled after his university received numerous letters of complaint from outraged animal activists. But his case isn’t common.
"The abusers are very clever," Rachel explains. "They are typically skilled at hiding their true identities, going to great lengths such as using multiple phones, having multiple numbers from different countries."
According to Feline Guardians Without Borders, the ‘cat torture ring’ operates like an online business with secret messaging groups and protected websites utilised to grow the twisted ‘community’.
It is thought people pay from across the globe pay to view the vile footage, thus creating a financial incentive for the abusers. Volunteers claim to have seen footage of cats lynched, placed in washing machines and cooked in air-fryers.
With the frequency of messages slowing around exam time in China, the group believe it suggests that some of the perpetrators could be students or young people.
While the footage would cause uproar if posted from the UK, where those who abuse animals face trial by the courts and trial by social media, in the People’s Republic of China, there are currently no nationwide laws which explicitly prohibit the mistreatment of animals.
However, World Animal Protection notes how there is some legislation protecting the welfare of animals exists in certain contexts, such as for research purposes and within zoos.
Rachel and Sandra, and others at Feline Guardians Without Borders, have reached out to politicians such as Xie Feng,
the Chinese Ambassador to the US. Meanwhile, charities such as Animal Asia, Humane Society International and Four Paws UK have put pressure on authorities to improve the protection of animals.
An Animals Asia protest in 2010.
Chinese Vigilantes and University Link
Activists are fighting back against a sick animal torture group who have been sharing videos online.
In one video published by animal-loving vigilantes, a man named only as Li was attacked at a shopping app [mall?] in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou.
Li under attack
Li had allegedly bragged on social media that he had already killed a number of cats and was on his way to adopt four more. But instead of meeting someone with some kittens, as he expected, he was ambushed by a group of cat-lovers who forced him to confess his misdeeds on camera. They then roughed him up and smeared human excrement all over his face.
“This guy was particularly known for boiling cats alive. He came to adopt a kitten for the sole purpose of wanting to kill it as slowly and as painfully as possible.”
After the attack police said they planned to arrest the vigilantes, as well as calling Li in for questioning.
After a number of cats had been found dead or dying in locations around Shanghai Tech University, a group of students tried to identify the killer. They were faced with a horrifying gesture of defiance.
They got access to the CCTV cameras in the areas where the cats’ bodies had been found in hope of working out who had been in those places recently. Stephanie explained: “They did not just find someone acting suspicious, they found someone staring straight into the camera with a cat in their hands.”
The woman, a female student with long black hair and carrying a drawstring backpack set the bag down in front of the camera and then, apparently aware that the students would be watching, she took an already-injured stray kitten out of her bag.
Stephanie said the cat, who the students later named Princess, was already dazed and helpless, but the woman showed no mercy. She explained: “She just starts strangling Princess with both hands right in front of the CCTV camera. Princess tries to struggle but she's already in a weak state, she can't fight back hard enough the strangulation went on until Princess's body went limp.”
The killer does not appear to ever have been brought to justice.
In another horrific case, a member of the animal torture ring uploaded a video showing a tiny cat being torn apart in a kitchen blender. The vile footage spread like wildfire across Twitter and Reddit.
“Once you’ve seen it there's no going back,” Stephanie said. “One comment reads; I couldn't even get through 10 seconds before I vomited everywhere. I watched it and I can tell you that as someone who has seen quite a bit it is absolutely horrible and it would make everyone completely sick."
Sadly, there seems little that can be done to rein in this horrific trade in online torture videos showing unspeakable cruelty likes pets being cooked alive in microwave ovens or dismembered, while still alive, using pliers.
A number of petitions are circulating, in hope of pressuring the Chinese government into drafting legislations to protect domestic cats and dogs. As yet, though, the animals’ only defence is the questionable acts of animal right vigilantes.
University Takes Action
A student at China Jiliang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, has been punished after being accused of torturing and killing a dozen cats, according to local authorities.
Multiple reports from netizens to the Zhejiang government online complaint platform accused the student, surnamed Yuan, of poisoning, torturing, and killing cats on university campuses. The reports stated that Yuan poisoned the cats at night on the campuses of China Jiliang University and neighboring Zhejiang Sci-Tech University from the 10th to the 27th of April. He allegedly kept the poisoned cats in a room for five days, causing a foul odour from the dead animals.
Yuan reportedly posted about his actions on an online forum, writing, "It is me who poisoned the cats, what can you do? I drowned them. I watched the videos of them convulsing every night, and it feels great." He also sought advice online on how to make poison.
In response to the online reports, China Jiliang University announced on Sunday that it had conducted an investigation and punished the student according to law and regulations. The university did not specify the details of the punishment.
Incidents of students being punished for torturing animals have been on the rise recently. In April, a student at Jiangxi Normal University was expelled after videos and pictures surfaced of him repeatedly torturing a pet cat in his dormitory. The student was also found to have disseminated obscene videos online and been frequently absent from class.
In another case, videos posted by a student surnamed Xu
showing him torturing, killing, and cooking three cats, sparked furious criticism online. Xu was not admitted to Nanjing University for postgraduate studies despite ranking top among all candidates. The university cited his failure in the admission interview as the reason. Lanzhou University also declined to admit Xu after a large number of netizens urged the university to reject his application, stating that academic grades are not the only criterion for admission.
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