The Council of Agriculture (COA) yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to remove a video it posted on Facebook on Tuesday, saying that it might be spreading false information by claiming that pigs given ractopamine experience physical and emotional pain.
The KMT is using the video, which shows pigs shivering and in apparent pain, as part of its attacks on the government’s decision to lift an import ban on pork containing the leanness-enhancing drug, COA Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said ahead of a budget review at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
The video was made by the US-based Animal Outlook group and released by the organization to protest inhumane killings of hogs at slaughterhouses, Chen said, adding that ractopamine was not mentioned in the original video.
Photo: Screen grab from Facebook
The KMT added Chinese narration that is inconsistent with the images, making the video “100 percent falsified and 100 percent inaccurate,” he said.
The KMT’s video said that “it is a slaughterhouse of pigs fed with the leanness-enhancing drug,” “ractopamine incites mood swings in pigs” and “pigs fed with the additive would get sick, let alone humans.”
The video allegedly constitutes spreading misinformation and generating a sense of public fear as the KMT attempts to mislead people by linking the drug to hog abuse, Chen said.
Photo: CNA
If the KMT does not remove the video, the council would file a lawsuit under the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), Chen said, urging people not to repost or share it.
KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that the party would not remove the video, as the information in it has been verified.
Not only has the government refused to address the health concerns surrounding pork containing traces of ractopamine, it is also seeking to deny freedom of speech, Chiang said.
A government that damages people’s health is in no position to punish a group defending health for others, he said.
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