CAIRO: Animal rights activists are demanding the Chinese government intervene and establish harsher penalties to stop animal cruelty after a video emerged with a woman torturing and murdering a rabbit. Activists and experts have said that the burgeoning business of animal cruelty needs to come to an end, highlighted by the recent video. A woman, who was paid to abuse rabbits to death on a video clip, has reported to the police after angry netizens launched a “human flesh search” on her and found out her identity, Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday. The 26-year-old woman, who uses an alias of Huang Xu, appeared on a four-minute video torturing a little rabbit under her high-heeled shoes and then crushing the creature to death by sitting on a thick glass plate placed on it. The video was first put on mop.com, a popular Chinese website, and reportedly drew more than 500,000 hits on the first day it was published. An unidentified friend of Huang said she had been involved in this underground business since 2007, when she put her resume online to find a job. A man contacted her and offered her a job making videos of “preparing salad by foot”, which meant Huang's job was to trample fruit with high-heeled shoes. The man, who was not identified by Huang's friend, reportedly told Huang that the video would only be sold abroad and that each time she trampled a fruit he would give her 100 yuan ($15). The man gradually required Huang to crush animals such as fish, insects and rabbits, and threatened to release the videos online if she quit, according to Xinhua's report. Huang said she received 400 yuan for the rabbit job and later quit the business. She has been suffering psychological harassment since then, the report said. BM
