BUDAPEST: A Hungarian woman who kept more than 100 malnourished cats and a dog in squalid conditions in her flat was sentenced to 10 months in prison for animal cruelty, a Budapest court said Tuesday.
The case sparked public outcry and is thought to be among the Central European country’s most serious animal abuse cases in recent years, local media reported.
The woman in her sixties was found guilty of causing “prolonged suffering to a large number of animals” by neglecting them, the court said in a statement.
The defendant — who did not show any remorse — failed to provide adequate food or water to the animals while keeping them locked up in her “faeces-contaminated flat.”
As a result of the neglect, the animals “suffered from external and internal parasitic diseases” and were deprived of “self-sufficiency,” it added.
The woman — who resisted arrest in 2019 and was taken into psychiatric care — has consistently denied neglecting the cats during the trial, and stressed she had helped a lot of animals in the past, independent news site Telex reported.
But some cats died in the flat and surviving animals had to be put down after being rescued due to suffering from a number of diseases, the article stated.
The case became public in Hungary after an animal welfare organization, Helping Angels — which assisted in rescuing the animals — shared photos on Facebook showing the flat’s filthy conditions.
Both the prosecution and the defense have appealed the ruling.
Hungarian woman who kept over 100 cats in squalor jailed for animal cruelty
https://arab.news/p4d54
Hungarian woman who kept over 100 cats in squalor jailed for animal cruelty
- The woman in her sixties was found guilty of causing “prolonged suffering to a large number of animals” by neglecting them, the court said
- The defendant failed to provide adequate food or water to the animals while keeping them locked up in her “faeces-contaminated flat“
KFC readies finger-licking Japanese Christmas
- The first KFC Christmas campaign was in 1974 and there are different theories about the origins
TOKYO: KFC in Japan is gearing up for the Christmas tradition of millions of families thronging the US fast-food chain for special festive buckets of deep-fried chicken and other treats.
“Reservations for KFC Christmas typically begin around the beginning of November,” Takuma Kawamura, a KFC marketing manager, told AFP at a new upmarket pop-up eatery in Tokyo.
“From that time, stores with the Col. statue will dress him in Christmas attire,” he said, referring to KFC’s late founder Col. Sanders, a widely recognized figure in Japan.
Japan has a tiny Christian majority and Christmas is a secular festival of full-bore consumerism complete with Santa, gifts and streetlights. Couples often go on dates on Christmas Eve.
For food, families often gorge themselves on special “Party Barrels” bursting with chicken, an array of side dishes and a dessert — such as ice cream or cheesecake — stored at the bottom in a separate compartment.
December 24 — Christmas Eve — is KFC Japan’s busiest day by far, with 10 times more customers than normal, the firm said in 2020. Reportedly 3.6 million families make orders.
The first KFC Christmas campaign was in 1974 and there are different theories about the origins.
These include that Takeshi Okawara, the manager of Japan’s first KFC outlet, overheard foreigners pining for turkey, which is often eaten at Christmas in Britain and the United States.
Col. Sanders, who died in 1980, has also entered into baseball folklore in Japan.
Hanshin Tigers supporters threw a plastic statue of the Col. from a KFC restaurant into a river in Osaka in 1985 on their way to winning Japan’s version of the World Series.
This was because fans — many of whom also jumped in the dirty Dotonbori waterway — thought the statue resembled Randy Bass, an American member of the team at the time.
But the dunking spawned the legend of the “Curse of the Colonel” that said the Tigers would never win another title until the effigy was recovered.
The sludge-covered statue was dredged out in 2009, cleaned up and put on display, but it took until 2023 for the Tigers finally to win the championship again.
The plastic Col. was finally disposed of last year following a ritual at a temple attended by KFC’s Japan president, who offered sake and fried chicken.
