SEOUL, South Korea (news - web sites) (AP) - French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has sent a protest letter to South Koreans over their country's dog-eating culture.

"Defending and justifying this brutality in the name of culture is an absurdity!" Bardot said in the letter, which was posted on her animal protection foundation's Web site and carried by The Korea Times, an English-language newspaper of South Korea, on Monday.

In the letter dated Dec. 4, Bardot said her Brigitte Bardot Foundation has received ``nearly a thousand insulting and threatening messages from Korea.''

``I dare to hope that all Koreans are not like those who recently sent those awful messages to my Foundation, and I dare to hope that many of you will not ignore animal suffering,'' the letter said.

She did not detail contents of the messages in her letter.

Bardot has long criticized the dog-eating habit of Koreans. About 3 million of South Korea's 46 million people are believed to eat dog meat as a delicacy. Dog meat also is eaten in some other Asian countries, including China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Early this month, the 67-year-old actress angered Koreans by hanging up the phone during an interview with MBC, a major South Korean radio-television network in Seoul, while discussing the country's dog-eating culture.