• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is cracking down on pet dogs in Pyongyang, per a local report.
  • A source told the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo that Kim criticized pet ownership as “a ’tainted’ trend by bourgeois ideology.”
  • The source described “resentment” among the lower classes because they raise pigs and livestock while the country’s officials and wealthier citizens own dogs.
  • The animals are being put down, sent to zoos, or sold to restaurants where dog meat is eaten, the source told Chosun Ilbo.
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Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, is cracking down on pet ownership in the capital city of Pyongyang, according to a local report.

Decrying it as a Western “decadence” and “a ’tainted’ trend by bourgeois ideology,” Kim in July ordered that dogs be confiscated, an unnamed source told the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

“Ordinary people raise pigs and livestock on their porches, but high-ranking officials and the wealthy own pet dogs, which stoked some resentment,” the source said.

The source added that “authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down.”

The dogs are also being sent to zoos or sold to restaurants where dog meat is eaten, the source told Chosun Ilbo, adding that pet owners were "cursing Kim Jong Un behind his back."

The famously secretive country has been reeling from a food shortage and floods. Meanwhile, its leaders have stuck to a narrative that it hasn't been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which has sickened nearly 22 million people and killed at least 775,000 people worldwide.

North Korea claimed to have one case in July: a defector who fled to South Korea and then swam back after becoming the focus of a sexual-assault investigation.

However, experts doubt that the Hermit Kingdom has remained unscathed by the disease, particularly as South Korean news sites have reported that almost 200 North Korean soldiers died of the coronavirus while several thousand more were quarantined to curb the spread of the disease.