SOUTH Koreans have rallied in support of their right to eat dogmeat, threatening an Internet war as part of a campaign to defend the traditional cuisine.

A nationalist group has vowed cyber hostilities against US media giant Warner Bros and one of France's state-run television channels which the activists accuse of being culturally-biased and "insulting".

Hitting back at mounting foreign criticism of the way dogs are slaughtered here, another South Korean group has announced a campaign backed by food scientists to promote the eating of dog meat.

The killing of dogs for restaurants has become a hot topic ahead of the football World Cup finals to be co-hosted by South Korea and Japan this year.

The debate was partly fuelled by football's international governing body, FIFA, which urged South Korea to prevent the inhumane killing of dogs.

But South Koreans are angry at the international pressure on their traditional cuisine.

The organisers of a South Korean website (antijapan.wo.ro) vowed to paralised the websites of Warner Bros and the French state television network on January 19.

They accused the broadcasters of falsely describing South Koreans and their food culture as barbaric.

"South Korean culture is under attack," said the Anti-Japan Group in a statement as it encouraged supporters to join the lobbying.

Cyber warfare has become a common weapon for South Koreans, who are one of the most Internet savvy nations in the world.

South Korean cyber campaigners last year disabled Japanese education ministry websites in a protest against history books accused of glossing over Japan's wartime record in Asia. The nationalist group was formed to campaign against Japan.

"The foreign broadcasters are now battering the eating dogmeat culture. This is insulting behaviour, trampling on a tradition of one country," fumed the group.

"They do not show any remorse for their culture of eating snails and horses. The cyber attack is to show the power of South Koreans and Asians against the West's sense of superiority and ignorance of our history."

Another group said they will launch an association next Monday of around 100 dogmeat restaurant owners in the Seoul region and hold a seminar to promote the dish.

An Yong-Geun, a food scientist at Chung Chong College, said he would introduce some 350 different kinds of culinary art with dogmeat.

The latest cultural clashes have seen French actress-turned activist Brigitte Bardot and other animal rights campaigners call for a halt to the South Korean practice of eating dogs.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter sent a letter last November to South Korea's World Cup Organising Committee calling for "immediate and decisive measures" against cruelty to dogs ahead of the World Cup which starts May 31.

But Chung Mong-Joon, head of the Korean Football Association and also a FIFA vice president, said FIFA should not meddle in the eating habits of a sovereign nation.

South Korean officials said most dogs bound for the dinner table were now killed instantly by electrocution.

But activists contend many slaughterhouses in the countryside remain out of control, with dogs strangled, hanged by a rope and beaten in line with traditional practice to make the meat more tender.

Dog restaurants were told to close or go into the backstreets when Seoul hosted the 1988 Olympics but no similar move is planned for the World Cup.

The authorities say the practice is slowly disappearing in Korea.

But about one million dogs are sold every year for food in South Korea and 92 percent of men aged 20 and above and 68 percent of adult women have tasted dog meat, a recent survey showed.



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