Why has North Korea confiscated pet dogs?

Pet owners are being targeted.

Reports have suggested that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has demanded that all pet dogs in the capital, Pyongyang, be confiscated.

Mystery surrounds the decision by the leader of the notoriously secretive state – with a number of theories given as to why he might have made the move.

So just what is going on in North Korea – and why are people being forced to give up their pets to the authorities?

Here’s what has been said…

Why is North Korea confiscating pet dogs?

Although the reasons aren’t clear, one report has suggested that Kim Jong-Un is confiscating people’s pet dogs due to them representing ‘western decadence’.

According to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, the leader has called the pets ‘a tainted trend by bourgeois ideology’.

‘Ordinary people raise pigs and livestock on their porches, but high-ranking officials and the wealthy own pet dogs, which stoked some resentment [among the lower classes],’ a source told the English edition of the publication.

‘Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down.’

The move has also come amid reported food shortages in North Korea in the wake of coronavirus – , raising suggestions that some dogs are being sent to restaurants for meat, while others are being sent to state-run zoos.

Chosun Ilbo reported that pet ownership used to be seen by the country’s authorities as a Western decadence, but that the attitude relaxed after the country played host to the World Festival Of Youth And Students back in 1989.

Although dog meat has long been considered a delicacy on the Korean Peninsula, it has become less popular in South Korea in recent years- but is still widely eaten in North Korea, with a number of restaurants dedicated to it.

MORE: ‘Fake’ photo of Kim Jong-un in coffin spreads after rumours of his death

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