A recent tragic case involving the death of a dog has sparked a public outcry over animal cruelty in South Korea and puts the effectiveness of animal protection laws in question.

Public outrage broke out after a picture was posted online on April 21 of a dog being dragged along a highway by its leash tied to the rear of a car.

The picture showed that the dog was already dead as the dog's internal organs had ruptured and the road was stained with blood.

What further fueled the fury over the horrendous animal abuse case was that the driver of the car was released without charge after being questioned by police.

The driver told police that he put the dog in the trunk thinking the dog might make the backseat dirty. He left the trunk open so that the dog won't suffocate, but the dog fell out of the trunk as the car sped up on the highway, he told police.

He was freed without charge as police found that he did not intentionally abuse the dog.

According to South Korea's animal protection laws, only those who deliberately abuse animals are subject to up to 10 million won, or about 8,832 U.S. dollars, in fines or up to one year in prison.

The acquittal of the driver has triggered widespread condemnation and protests from Internet users against the lenient handling of animal abuse. "There are people who think that this incident is not a big deal. It explains why we face so many cases of animal abuse in the country," wrote one netizen on Daum Agora, one of the largest internet debate bulletin boards in South Korea. "We have to strength animal protection laws so that people won't treat animal cruelty lightly."

Animal rights groups strongly denounced the police's decision and launched demonstrations demanding a reinvestigation of the case and harsher punishment for the dog owner. "If it was a case involving the death of a human being, it would not have been closed with an acquittal based on a few testimonies," Park So- yeon, head of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), told local media.

CARE has been collecting signatures for an online petition to set up a law prohibiting animal abusers from raising animals again.

The activist group is also scheduled to hold a rally on Saturday in central Seoul to protest the handling of the case.