Veteran actress Brigitte Bardot is appealing to the prime minister of Thailand to clamp down on the slaughter of thousands of dogs in illegal abattoirs.

The French star, who is an avid animal rights activist, has penned an emotional open letter to Thai Premier Yingluck Shinawatra urging her to watch YouTube.com video Hell on Earth - Thailand's Dog Meat Trade in a bid to open her eyes to the brutal operation.

In the note, published on Wednesday (17Mar13), Bardot claims that around 100,000 dogs are killed every year in Tha Rae, northeast Thailand, while thousands more are exported alive to be slaughtered elsewhere.

She writes, "Tha Rae is the centre of a squalid trade in which dogs are killed for their meat or their skin in underground abattoirs after being captured in the street or stolen from their owners. Every year, 100,000 dogs are killed there. As many if not more are illegally exported from all over Thailand in atrocious conditions, crammed and starved during a 36-hour road journey in order to be brutally killed and eaten in Vietnam."