Ricky Gervais Apologizes After Posting Video of Man Slaughtering Dog

Ricky Gervais is apologizing after sharing a video of a man slaughtering a dog — saying he shared the video to bring the man in the video to justice.

On Monday, the British comedian tweeted that he would like to “kill” a man shown in a video butchering a dog with a meat cleaver.

Warning: The video in the tweet Gervais shares below contains extremely graphic content.

“I’m probably breaking some sort of Twitter rules here, but I want to kill this c—,” Gervais wrote when retweeting a video that was shared in order to find the man who killed the dog.

The gruesome video shows the man repeatedly slashing at the tied-up dog with a meat cleaver until the animal is beheaded and killed. The video is being shared by campaigners who want to identify the man. Gervais has long criticized the treatment of dogs in Asia and is a well known animal rights campaigner.

Some of Gervais’ followers objected to the sharing of the brutal video, arguing that the grainy footage gives no real clues as to the man’s identity and therefore is more disturbing than helpful in delivering justice to the dog killer.

“Is there really any point in sharing animal abuse videos from others countries? I want to kill this cowardly c— too Ricky but really are we helping by spreading such horror?” one person wrote to Gervais.

“The suspect is completely unknown. We have no idea which country it is in. The date and time cannot be verified. Person who recorded the event is unknown,” another person said. “I know this is well meaning but the footage of this poor dog being butchered achieves absolutely nothing. Please take it down.”

Others supported Gervais’ tweet.

“I notice a few people moaning that you used the ‘c’ word, one even saying they’re blocking you. I find it truly staggering that someone is more upset by a word than what’s happening in this video,” one person wrote.

Later, Gervais tweeted an apology for sharing the video, but did not delete the tweet and wrote that he felt it served a higher purpose than spreading images of animal cruelty on the internet.

“Apologies for posting photos and videos of animal cruelty. They break my heart too, but in many cases the sub human scum are recognised and brought to justice. Have a nice day,” he wrote alongside a sweet photo of a dog licking his face.

In the past, Gervais has spoken out against China’s annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival, which he called a “dog torture festival.”

In June 2015, the Daily Mail reports that more than 500,000 people backed a campaign fronted by the actor and Dame Judi Dench to halt the trade of dogs in southeast Asia.