In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears to have declared war on stray dogs. Precisely in that Turkey where the four-legged, both dogs and cats, are often tolerated, sterilized and do not create problems of coexistence. So what happened then? In his speech on December 25, the Turkish president ordered municipalities to remove strays from the streets of the city and lock them up in local shelters and kennels. And to trigger this decision there would have been a news case in the south-eastern province of Antep: two Pit Bulls attacked Asiye Ateş, a 4-year-old girl, causing serious injuries to the scalp, nerves of the face and other parts of the body. . The little girl risks losing her hearing and having facial paralysis. Unfortunately, Asiye wasn’t the only victim – three children were injured by Pit Bulls over the weekend in Istanbul and the western province of Denizli.
Although the Pit Bulls were not stray, Erdoğan used the incident to make a decision: «I consider it an important service to remove stray animals from the streets and move them to clean and safe environments. I urge all our municipalities to take swift measures to ensure the safety of our citizens and protect these lives, ”reads one of his tweets written on Christmas day.
But after that message, many local animal rights activists began to protest both because they do not consider locking dogs in shelters as a solution to stray dogs, and because many denounce the conditions in which these structures are: in fact it is a death sentence for all these dogs.
Hayvan Hakları Federasyonu (Haytap), Turkey’s leading animal rights organization, said in a written statement that they agreed with the idea of keeping stray dogs under control, but said they should be let loose afterwards. sterilization instead of being locked up in “prison-like” animal shelters. According to the law, remember the animal rights activists, the Municipalities are obliged to bring the animals back to where they took them after having given them the necessary care or after having sterilized them. Stray animals can only be kept temporarily in shelters, the law says.
Haytap has also called on authorities to stop the sale of dangerous breeds in pet stores and online and believes that those who train them to be so aggressive must receive the heaviest sentence: the charge of attempted murder.
The lawyer Hacer Gizem Karataş, of the Animal Rights Monitoring Committee, recalls that Erdoğan’s statement is contrary to “Article 6 of the Animal Protection Law” and points out that there are no shelters capable of hosting so many dogs: to give that kind of order is to sentence them to death. Karatas also recalls that in tragedies such as that of the four-year-old girl the responsibility is almost always the man: «For a long time, we tried to create a perception on the dogs that live on the street. Regarding this problem, questions such as who is primarily responsible or what is the solution are never asked because it is not in the interest of public institutions. There are situations where insufficient punishments are given for those who have killed or tortured dogs. Ignoring the influence of humans on dogs, animals are automatically found guilty – explains the lawyer to birgun.net -. These animals are kept by people only because their jaw muscles are strong. And since they were puppies they are trained to brutality by beating them, starving them, pushing them to tear each other apart. Also for this reason we have repeatedly asked that animals made aggressive in this way be rehabilitated ».
The topic of stray dogs had already ended up in the crosshairs of supporters close to Erdogan: Mine Vural, animal rights activist and main challenger of the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, last October highlighted the story of Boji a stray dog who became a social media star because he was a friend of the commuters he kept company on trains, ferries and subways. A month later social media accounts associated with pro-Erdogan activists began posting photos of alleged dog droppings on an Istanbul tram, accusing Boji of being responsible. But then security camera footage emerged showing a man leaving excrement on those vehicles creating false evidence.
Turkey is also facing the worst economic crisis of the past two decades, with the currency falling to historic lows and inflation above 25%, draining the savings of the Turks. Some opponents have accused the president of using dogs to distract himself from his other problems. A very risky choice since the Turks, regardless of political alignment or cultural level, love stray cats and dogs: just think of the case of Tombili, the cat who loved to lie down leaning against a sidewalk and in that position he was immortalized in a statue made after his death.
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