Things to know about Dog Meat festival in China

Showing apathy to dogs, Yulin city in China holds an annual cruel festival on the summer solstice devoted to the consumption of dog meat. The festival this year got huge criticism from across the globe. Celebrities like Ricky Gervais and Gisele Bündchen have rallied behind the viral social media hashtag #StopYulin2015, while an online petition addressed to the Guangxi governor and China's minister of agriculture had gathered millions of signatures by Tuesday.

Below are some facts related to Dog Festival...

• Dog meat festival is an annual celebration in China's southern town of Yulin.
• The festival itself has no cultural significance, it was invented by dog meat traders in 2010 as a way to boost their flagging business.

• An online campaign to ban the festival has been signed by more than 3.8 million people so far.
• The tradition of eating dog meat dates back four or five hundred years in China, South Korea and other countries, as it is believed to ward off the heat of the summer months.
• Up to 10 million dogs are believed to be killed for their meat in China every year, with as many as 10,000 killed for the Yulin festival alone.
• Dog Meat festival was termed as cruel and unhygienic.