Hi all,
Kudos to the colleagues in Poland who have managed to interest the Polish Press in our issue, and an extensive article has been printed. Well done!!
(Note: this – special Polish Characters – is not displaying correctly)
TRANSLATION
Where does evil come from?/if so where/from man/always from man/and only from man
“Unde Malum”? – where does evil come from?
If you have a pet, close your eyes and think about it. You probably feel sympathy, maybe love, tenderness. Every day you make sure to provide it with the best possible conditions: a warm bed, toys; in the store, you read the labels and make sure to buy food containing 100% meat (God forbid the one with 99%!). I think similarly because I also have animals. And did you know that at the same time – perhaps this very second – cats in China are being tortured and killed? I would like to tell you about “Death (Torture) Groups” on Telegram, an inconspicuous communication application.
STRUCTURE
The Internet in China is subject to censorship. The Communist Party is closing access to all social media that most of the world is accustomed to. So how is it possible that Death Groups use Telegram? How does content flow to Instagram? For this purpose, a VPN service is used – it encrypts data in such a way that the Internet provider cannot locate the place from which the user connects. In practice, members of the Circles of Death can use Western applications quite freely.
Abusers focus mainly on Telegram. You can usually join groups if you provide a recording or photo of a self-inflicted act of torture. In this way, members minimize the risk of “moles” infiltrating the circle. Tormentors also organize streams where they broadcast their terrible deeds live for entertainment.
Torture materials are distributed around the world. Customized films sell well – in this case the customer can decide on the course of the execution. The second giant in this category are crush fetish films: recipients of such content gain sexual satisfaction from the sight of animals being crushed. Cao Shan, known to Chinese activists, operates under the guise of a shoe store. Customers can choose the type of footwear with which the animal will be killed.
Fot: Instagram/guardianes_felinos
Teenagers are also encouraged to get involved in the practice. Members of Death Groups are not necessarily middle-aged men and adult women who run a business on fetishists. Many of the perpetrators are students and even high school students. In fact, it happens that their parents are prominent members of Chinese society: bank heads, activists of the Communist Party; sometimes they even take part in adopting cats.
TORTURE
March 2024, China
One of the co-administrators of the Death Groups, Xu Ruiyang, was not accepted into the master’s program at Nanjing University despite excellent exam results. This state of affairs is probably due to activists who informed the public about Xu’s activities.
In December 2023, the owner of Monika, a long-haired red cat, loses her pet at the airport in Shanghai. Unfortunately, Monica encounters people with bad intentions. In March, members of the Circles of Death, in revenge for the activists’ activities, publish information about the kidnapping of Monika. The rejection of Xu’s application is the final straw. This is how the cat’s torture begins.
The perpetrators periodically pass the victim on to each other. During this time, Monica is beaten, electrocuted, and pricked with needles. One of the torturers cuts off her leg. The torture takes place to the accompaniment of jokes and mockery in Telegram messages.
The distraught owner reports the kidnapping to the Shanghai police three times. Besides, he’s trying to pay a ransom. He fails at this because of the complex cryptocurrency system. According to reports from Feline Guardians, attempted transactions are carried out by… customer service of telegram groups. Degenerates have created a real business. The police’s slowness does not lead to a breakthrough in Monika’s case.
March 26, 2024, probably Guangdong, China
A tri colour kitten is skinned alive. After the torture, it was still alive.
Fot.: Instagram/Feline Guardians Without Borders
April 2024, China
A woman adopts a ginger kitten through Xianyu – the Chinese equivalent of OLX. The cat will probably not survive to adulthood. The tormentor twists the kitten’s claws with pliers. Then he sticks toothpicks into it. As a “joke”, she pins a Hello Kitty badge on his body. The kitten is then doused with boiling water.
March 14, 2023, Fuyang, China
Xu Zhihui, a well-known blogger in China (nickname: Jack Latiao), kidnaps a homeless cat. The cat is burned with a hot iron. The next day he ties the animal to a tree. In this position, Latiao brutally beats the cat. Finally, he puts it in a plastic bag and sets it on fire. The cat burns alive.
Fot.: Instagram/Feline Guardians Without Borders
CONSEQUENCES
Here is just a sampling of several confirmed cases of telegram torture and murder. The scale of the crimes is shocking. Unfortunately, the perpetrators do not receive adequate punishment. There is no law in China that criminalizes animal cruelty. That’s why Lei Li, a torturer with twenty years of experience in harming animals, boasted to his colleagues that he legally tortured cats. The same man even appeared on TV. The “Today” program exposed Lea’s acts of cruelty. However, this man did not suffer any consequences.
One of the most famous admins of the Circles of Death, Wang Chaoyi, was sentenced to… 15 days of detention; not for torture, but for damaging the car window. Among other things, the man allegedly cut open the belly of a pregnant cat, which he forced to eat the remains of her own unborn kittens.
When the law fails, social pressure makes the most sense. Thanks to their activism, several degenerates were dismissed from their jobs. That is why it is important that we do not turn our eyes away from the harm – signing petitions, informing schools and workplaces of perpetrators; it all matters. It is worth mentioning all those who fight against the activities of Death Groups: the community centers around the volunteer group Feline Guardians Without Borders. People of good will from all over the world gather in local branches of the FG. In Poland, the topic was first discussed by YouTuber Dama Hearts in this video. I invite you, Reader, to read the interview with the spiritus movens of Polish activities for the victims of the Circles of Death.
Julia Koral: How did you find out about Death Groups?
Dama Kier: I learned about Death Groups from several people in the Spanish community I belong to. After the film about the cat in the blender, a considerable debate arose and people began to look for the source of the film. The thread has grown to gigantic proportions. I did not get involved in this case myself, suspecting that it was a one-time situation, and when they find the culprit, they will (according to the old rule of the Internet) make sure that this person will never commit similar acts again. I was quite devastated when I learned that the recording came from China and was part of a larger puzzle. I also know that different people learned about animal torture networks from different sources, ultimately ending up in one thread. Pseudo-Satanist and Nazi groups on Facebook and Whatsapp used these recordings as their edgy content.
J.K.: What is the estimated scale of the problem?
D.K.: This is really a difficult question. When consulting the problem with activists from China, I received information that similar cases of brutal animal torture have recently been reported in many countries around the world. We have a situation in Lithuania where several cats were crucified. In Canada, a teenager was brutally lynched for torturing a cat during a live broadcast and throwing it out of a window. In Turkey, animal torture is linked to promoting terrorism. In Russia, minors, on the orders of group administrators, murder their animals and write the names of the groups they belong to in their blood, and all this takes place in a sect-like atmosphere.
In Poland, we had situations where birds were boiled alive and a cat was cut with a guillotine. According to my findings, which we should not trust one hundred percent because OTOZ [Polish Society for the Protection of Animals] did not provide me with the necessary information, the case with the guillotine is a bit more complicated. Most likely, the teenagers were simply in possession of the video and did not kill the cat.
However, I have no proof that OTOZ does not have some modified version of the recording, I do not know what prompted them to draw such conclusions, because the accusations are specific. I also don’t know if they even have a cat’s body – if so, that changes things. This type of killing of an animal has been seen before, and the method of murder is consistent with the methods used by Chinese torturers. It’s the same with blender videos. This wasn’t a single situation. More than one person has committed such an atrocity. This raises another question: whether the guillotine teenagers downloaded the movie from the top of the page, or maybe someone is playing the Polish version of Chinese red rooms and reposting content from China to the community that is just being built.
So we have a network of dependencies that should be looked at by the relevant services.
When I was making a film about red rooms, the scale of abuse seemed extraordinary to me. The brutality and the number of victims exceeded my wildest expectations. It is also worth noting that the problem is not, as it might seem, local. The ranks of Chinese groups are swelled by people who plan to go abroad to study. Australia, the United States, and also Europe are targeted. One of the cat torturers with the most extensive achievements left his country. He currently resides in the USA, specifically in Brooklyn.
Fot.: Feline Guardians Without Borders
J.K.: How long do such groups last?
D.K.: All this macabre came to light in the spring of 2023, but some members of these groups have a surprisingly long history of producing snuff films. Before they united into a collective, they operated independently. Several of them had been torturing animals occasionally for over a decade. Now that they have established structures, they operate en masse. They have their own pages, groups and subgroups. Chinese communities of this type are characterized by a high level of organization. They have IT experts, recruiters who are focused on recruiting easily manipulated teenagers. There are people responsible for segregating between open and closed groups. What surprised me the most was the support team that offers connecting one user to another and special teams that manage communities on Telegram. I think it took them at least several months to reach this level of organization, and since they were operating efficiently when detected, I guess it all had its beginning during the pandemic – just like the increase in interest in child pornography.
J.K.: What would you say to people who say that the average Chinese person does not have access to Telegram, so there is no social reaction?
D.K.: This is a simple lie that no thinking person will swallow. There is such a global dependency in the virtual world – the more oppressed a nation is, the more ways it finds to fight for its independence. To move freely on the Internet, all you need is a VPN. Government organizations may go on and on about the Great Firewall, penalties for using non-government-approved applications, and possible consequences for breaking the rules, but the truth is that it’s all publicly available. New generations coming online are taking advantage of the array of opportunities to take full advantage of banned apps, media and websites. This is also the case with Telegram.
J.K.: How do you deal emotionally with dealing with this topic?
D.K.: It doesn’t affect me emotionally. I understand the importance of this case and the level of macabre we are dealing with, so this is not the time to let my emotions dictate what I do. However, I will not hide the fact that I am disappointed with the direction we are heading.
J.K.: What was the response to your material?
D.K.: Due to the level of violence, most people did not watch the material until the end, but even without detailed descriptions, many people decided to get involved in helping. Apart from a few individuals seeking applause by making statements that are not entirely logical, I have not noticed any negative reception. After the material was published, the number of signed petitions increased rapidly. We are planning protests that would raise public awareness. People plan to put up posters and inform about the pathology on a wide scale. This reflects very well on us as a global online community. We turn words into actions. We stand without fear in front of the threat and strongly oppose it. We are an oppositional collective fuelled by the mutual strength of fighting for justice.
J.K.: What is the reaction of Chinese society to the activities of activists?
D.K.: I don’t have enough data to comment on this matter honestly, but I know that due to the degree of cruelty of the Death Groups, special attention began to be paid to disturbing behaviour towards animals. Recently, a man was caught trying to catch several stray cats. He broke one animal’s leg. Passers-by who witnessed the entire incident intervened. It turned out that he was a member of the network who studied at Hunan University. We are trying to expel him from the university, just like the previous two tormentors.
Chinese activists also scattered leaflets informing about the situation from the roof of the building, thus paralyzing traffic, and this event spread on Weibo. At another university, where one of the students dropped off murdered animals on the campus, a campaign was organized to lay flowers and bring cat toys to honour the memory of those who could not be saved. In China, thanks to streams from feeders for homeless cats, public awareness has increased and there are many indications that it will continue to grow. It’s not ideal, because recently a dog that was a pet at the local equivalent of a junior high school was beaten to death with a baton. The reason was the lack of vaccination against rabies. The recording ended up online, and since the act of cruelty was carried out in front of students, debates about morality arose. Every change starts with taking small steps. This is also the case here.
ARE YOU INTERESTED IN THE TOPIC? TAKE ACTION!
SIGN THE PETITION: https://www.felineguardians.org/take-action
JOIN THE FELINE GUARDIANS COMMUNITY: https://www.instagram.com/feline_guardians/
SOURCES: https://www.felineguardians.org/;
Video Damy Kier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7H27IiIris&t=736s;
Video Yard Fish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17oWKTXpBWE&t=8s;
Video Ally from China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY_zP4uOiAE&t=952s
Our WAV petitions:
UK – Petition · Chinese Cat Torture – Time For Action To Stop It. – United Kingdom · Change.org
Germany – https://www.change.org/p/china-katzen-folter-ring-cat-torture-ring
World Animals Voice 