Manama: Saudi Wildlife Commission has launched an appeal to the public to help identify a group of young men who burned a caged fox to death.
The act of torture was captured in a video clip that went viral on social networks and sparked wide condemnations and uncompromising calls for stringent action against the torturers.
The video - which is too graphic to publish - showed the torturers pouring an inflammable substance on the fox inside a cage and burning him. One young man was heard as saying that they wanted to punish the fox for eating 30 chickens.
No indications about the date or the place of the heinous act were available, and the Saudi Wildlife Commission, expressing deep shock, urged the public and the ministry of interior to help identify those who “shamelessly violated all Islamic values and rules".
“Such an act is totally against human nature and values, perpetrated by terrorists and criminals,” Prince Bandar Bin Saud Bin Mohammad, the president of the Saudi Wildlife Commission, said. “Their behaviour is exactly like what the members of the so-called Islamic State are doing, killing without mercy. Torturing an animal to death is not and cannot be condoned by anyone who claims he is a Muslim. And filming this abominable act to show off makes our heart bleed and deeply disturbs everyone who respects life,” prince Bandar said.
He said that people with information about the torturers should come forth.
“We urge their identification because they are not men. Manhood has specific standards and criteria. These are terrorists living in the dark,” he said. “We must all stand against them because they have violated the basic values of humanity. Foxes, like all people and animals, have rights. Our religion has laid out very clear instructions on how to behave and deal with animals,” he said.
