North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly condemns pet ownership as a 'decadence' and orders dogs be confiscated

• North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is clamping down on pet dogs in Pyongyang, per local reports.
• South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo cited an anonymous source who said that Kim criticized pet ownership as "a 'tainted' trend by bourgeois ideology."
• The source described "resentment" among the lower classes because they raise pigs and livestock, while the country's officials and wealthier populace own dogs.
• The animals are being put down, sent to zoos or sold to restaurants where dog meat is eaten, the source said, according to Chosun Ilbo.

Kim Jong Un, North Korea's leader, is cracking down on pet ownership in the capital city of Pyongyang, according to local reports.

Decrying it as a Western "decadence" and "a 'tainted' trend by bourgeois ideology," Kim in July ordered that dogs be confiscated, an unnamed source told South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

"Ordinary people raise pigs and livestock on their porches, but high-ranking officials and the wealthy own pet dogs, which stoked some resentment," the source said.

Per Chosun Ilbo, the source added that "authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down.''

The dogs are also being sent to zoos or sold to restaurants where dog meat is eaten, the source told Chosun Ilbo, noting that pet owners are "cursing Kim Jong Un behind his back."

This move comes as the famously secretive country reels from a food shortage and floods.

Meanwhile, its leaders are sticking to the national narrative that they haven't been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which has sickened nearly 22 million people and killed at least 775,000 people worldwide. It claimed to have one case in July — a North Korean defector who fled to South Korea and then swam back after becoming the subject of a sexual assault investigation. However, experts doubt that the Hermit Kingdom has remained unscathed by the disease, particularly amid South Korean media reports that almost 200 soldiers died of the coronavirus while several thousand more were quarantined to curb the infection's spread.

• Read more:
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• Inside Kim Jong Un's secretive childhood and family
• 31 photos of North Korea that Kim Jong Un wouldn't want you to see
• Meet North Korea's most powerful woman, Kim Yo Jong: Kim Jong Un's 30-something sister who's sending fiery threats to South Korea and could eventually take over as leader