As the 2018 Winter Olympics get underway, it has been reported that South Korean dog meat vendors are firmly defying protests against them.
The dog meat trade is very big in the country, and with the Winter games ascending upon the city of Pyeongchang a new, albeit unwanted, light has been shed on the controversial practice.
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City officials have requested that the the 12 restaurants in the city who serve dog meat change their menu or close up during the events, but Yahoo! reports that none of them have complied.
“We’ve faced a lot of complaints from restaurant operators that we are threatening their livelihood,” Lee Yong-bae, a county official, told reporters. “Some of them initially shifted to selling pork or things instead of dog meat only to find their sales plunging sharply. They then switched back to dog meat.”
Online protests have waged on, with many threatening to “boycott Pyeongchang” but, unfortunately, the activism has done little to put a stop to the cultural practice.
The 2018 Olympic games have been rife with controversy lately, with one of the most shocking coming last year before the games even began.
According to reports, the International Olympic Committee banned the Russian team from even competing as a result of discovering “systematic doping” that they believe to be state-backed.
Russian officials are barred from attending the games, the Russian flag will not be flown or displayed, and the Russian anthem will not be played, per a New York Times story.
However, Russian athletes are not completely prohibited from competing, as some could receive special dispensation. In the event they do, they will compete while wearing a neutral uniform and if they win any medals the official Olympic records will not reflect as Russian state wins.
Additionally, Thomas Bach, the president of International Olympic Committee, revealed that there will actually be a special ceremony to re-distribute the medals that were awarded at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
This is due to the Russian athletes being stripped of their medals from those games after the mass doping discovery.
Officials from Russia have argued that the country has been trying to reverse the doping issue and they deserve a second chance, as well as help from the Olympic Committee to solve the problem.
Vitaly Stepanov, one of the chief whistle-blowers in Russia’s alleged doping scheme, disagreed with the claims that Russia was trying to resolve the situation.
“The world knows that hundreds of Olympic dreams have been stolen by the doping system in the country where I was born,” Mr. Stepanov wrote. “The evidence is clear, that the doping system in Russia has not yet been truly reformed.”
