Part 1 

May 2023 marks the initial explosion of feline torture videos in China with the “cat in a blender” footage and Cow Cat’s 36-hour ordeal of unimaginable hell. Disturbingly, the perpetrators of these heinous acts only received detentions of 15 and 14 days respectively because of the lack of animal protection laws in China. 

Practically every week there are new harrowing videos, and investigations inside and outside China have uncovered a highly organized criminal network that utilizes cat torture to represent the intersection of business (the videos earn profits on the dark web), zoosadism and terrorism (pornographic photoshop montages provoking leaders, mocking other ethnicities, and inciting hatred against the perpetrators and the Chinese). 

These cat torture rings operate as organized transnational criminals with hierarchical task division to produce more than 500 files of feline torture in two years. China must heed the outcry of activists in over 50 countries around the world and enact an exemplary federal law to punish and deter these dangerous, sadistic criminals.

Part 2

It is difficult to track down producers of violent content because networks such as Californian Cloudflare hide the real IP of websites unless a court order forces them to do so. The company ignored the technically simple request from tens of thousands of appeals from citizens and activists to take down websites and submit data to authorities, yet complied in less than 24 hours with the 2024 Supreme Federal Court order to take down X. Other providers such as AWS (Amazon) use the same institutional modus operandi of intransigence, negligence in checking complaints, and minimum accountability in combatting the international organized crime utilizing their services.

Telegram has become the hub of the worst types of content because videos get submitted to their groups using IPFS string-type links that can be watched from any provider, making tracking more difficult and taking them down almost impractical, considering that the list of strings in 2024 exceeds 500 links. Telegram channels are generated and closed frequently to facilitate fraud, destroy evidence and evade temporarily infiltrated activists.

In China, despite the heavy regulation and surveillance of the state, it is easy to find zoosadism because local regulation is unable or does not make enough effort to deal with it. While contents are generated locally by Chinese mafiosos, members of the network have used English, Russian, Arabic, Turkish and other languages that testify to international partnerships. 

The motivations and ends behind the torture productions are complex and convoluted, intentionally intensifying the revolt and infamy they cause, and outraging anti-torture activists to pressure the Chinese government.

The producers want the government to consider the pro-animal movements as enemies, and close China off to international appeals and internal political negotiations. It cannot be excluded that international associations or isolated anti-China individuals are injecting capital into cat torture videos to erode China’s years of building up soft power.

In 2023 the cat torture rings practiced dox (acquiring private information with malware and blackmailing it) against Chinese celebrities such as actresses and singers “Viann” Zhang Xin yu (張馨予) and “Rosy” Zhao Lu Si (赵露思), who were extorted for drawing the attention of fans and local and foreign media, and calling for investigation and justice for the cats tortured.

Part 3

Criminals offered cryptocurrency rewards to people for filming the torture and killing of community cats in the care of volunteers for the Chinese company Hello Street Cat. The  great media repercussion mobilized activists from all over the world to home most of the cats before the torturers could act, but some felines were not so lucky. 

The torture rings seek to provoke and test the limits of people, institutions and the animal victims themselves with increasingly intense, painful, slow and repulsive techniques, as well as extending the cat's survival through the use of drugs for further torture. In response, more than 50 protests took place in at least 19 countries, with several editions in some, including the USA, Japan, France, Spain, Italy, England, Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Sweden, Finland, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil and China itself. Petitions in several languages ​​gathered more than 300,000 signatures.

The cat torture network has many parallels to that of monkey torture, but unfortunately it cannot claim the same criminal conviction results of the latter that include 3 years of prison in Indonesia for torturing animals and selling a protected species, sentences of 1 or 2 years for encouraging and assisting in the torture of monkeys, and 3 years for a torture content distributor in the US.

Contrast these convictions with the absence of laws against animal cruelty in China that punishes cat torture in a token manner, and the result is the escalation of the heinously grotesque that we must confront and fight every day on all continents. Studies have clearly demonstrated the fact that criminals who torture humans started off with animals, yet China is not taking measures against the incubation of local psychopaths as demonstrated by the cases university students torturing animals. 

Continuing to ignore these crimes perpetuates a culture of violence that damage human beings with these horrors, inflicting psychological, emotional and somatic disorders. But those harmed most of all are the animals, the most vulnerable victims tortured daily in the most gruesome ways. Calling for stronger laws, international cooperation, and sustained efforts to end zoosadism and hold perpetrators accountable, organizations such as Feline Guardians will keep on working to fight and end animal torture. Please join us. https://www.felineguardians.org/