Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Shyu Jong-shyoung (徐中雄) said yesterday he had initiated a proposed amendment to the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) make posting pictures or video clips of animal abuse on the Internet a punishable crime.
The amendment says that anyone found to have distributed, aired or sold pictures or video footage of an abused animal would be liable for a jail term of up to one year or a maximum fine of NT$30,000.
People posting such images for academic purposes or public interest reasons, however, would not face punishment, the proposal states.
At present the Act stipulates that anyone found to have deliberately abused animals could be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000, while repeat offenders could face one year in prison.
The law does not specify any punishment for people who upload photographs, images or footage of animal abuse to the Web.
A number of bloggers in Taiwan have uploaded video clips of a similar nature to their blogs or video-sharing social platforms such as the YouTube.
One recently posted pictures of a dog whose eye had been removed and pretended the dog had been abused in a bid to boost the number of visitors to his blog.
“[These people] distribute such a violent, intolerable culture through the Internet simply to satisfy their own desires,” Shyu said.
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