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Anonymous hits Euro 2012 site over Ukraine dog slaughter

Massive dog slaughters in Ukraine prompt online activists to target Web site for soccer championship.

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
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Elinor Mills
Anonymous accounts tweeted about an attack on a Euro 2012 Web site to protest mass killings of dogs ahead of the soccer championship in Ukraine.
Anonymous accounts tweeted about an attack on a Euro 2012 Web site to protest mass killings of dogs ahead of the soccer championship in Ukraine.

Online activists with Anonymous said they took out a site associated with the Euro 2012 games in Ukraine to protest the country's rounding up and slaughter of stray dogs in advance of the soccer championship that started there today.

The account for YourAnonNews tweeted: "#OpUkraine?: Revenge for your Animal Holocaust: http://www.kieveuro2012.org ==>> TANGO DOWN!! | ?#Euro2012? via @AnonOpsLegion| ?#Anonymous? ?#Ukraine?"

However, the site appeared to be back up as of midday Pacific Time. Distributed denial-of-service attacks that shut down Web sites are Anonymous' tool of choice in its ops, or operations. The activists have targeted a host of companies and governments over issues ranging from human rights to online privacy and civil rights.

The Ukraine government has been criticized for conducting mass killings of dogs found in the streets in an attempt to clean up the city ahead of the soccer event, over the past year or more. Ukraine officials said last November that they would stop the killings, but recent photos and video appear to show that the slaughter has not stopped.

Tens of thousand of dogs, including some wearing collars indicating they are pets, reportedly have been poisoned, shot or thrown into incinerators alive. YouTube video from October from the RussiaToday site is here. Warning: images are disturbing.

Update June 11 at 12:04 p.m. PT: The Kiev Euro 2012 site was offline again on Monday.