Paul McCartney has vowed to never perform in China, adding that he will boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics, after viewing video footage taken at a fur market in the South Chinese city of Guangzhou.
The film in question shows cats and dogs packed into small wire cages being thrown from the top of a converted double decker bus onto concrete pavements. The injured animals are then thrown over a seven foot fence before being killed and skinned for their fur. Animal welfare group Peta added that it suspects many of the animals are still alive when they are skinned.
Having seen the footage McCartney told reporters: "This is barbaric. Horrific. It's like something out of the dark ages. And they seem to get a kick out it. They're just sick, sick people. I wouldn't even dream of going over there to play, in the same way I wouldn't go to a country that supported apartheid. This is just disgusting. It's just against every rule of humanity. I couldn't go there. How can the host nation of the Olympics be seen allowing animals to be treated in this terrible way?"
A spokesman for the Chinese Ambassador in London told the BBC: "Though cats and dogs are not endangered, we do not encourage the ill treatment of cats and dogs. But, anyway, the fur trade mostly feeds markets in the US and Europe. So the Americans and Europeans should accept the blame. We have no plans to clamp down on this internally that I am aware of - it is for the US and Europeans to take their own action. They should boycott fur as a fashion material. I do not agree with Mr McCartney and his wife's point of view - a boycott of Chinese goods and the Olympics is simply not justifiable."