At the time when the Greek media broadcast shocking images of the rescuers who self-sacrificingly removed dogs from the fiery fronts-hell of Attica, employees of the Metropolitan Municipality of Ankara “tortured”, “dismembered” and “killed” stray dogs, starting to put into practice the “law of slaughter”, as characterized by members of the Turkish opposition and by animal welfare organizations, the controversial legislation that was hastily passed, before the summer holidays, by the government Erdogan for the “rationalization” and control of their increase in the country. Government estimates indicate that nearly four million stray dogs are living illegally throughout Turkish territory.
How the law passed
The law of the Turkish government, which the ruling minds call “uyutma”, a word – what irony! – with a double interpretation in Turkish – it means both “sleeping” and “cheating” – was voted in the National Assembly by Erdogan’s ruling AKP and its government partner, the Nationalist Action Party (MİP), after a marathon overnight meeting, at the end of July , with 275 votes in favor, 224 against and one abstention.
“From 1910 to 2024: Turkey again on the brink of a new dog massacre?” asks the authoritative Turkish website Yetkin Report, recalling the country’s oldest dog genocide. The Turkish journalist answers the question in the affirmative Erkin Onjanconveying to us the “very cruel images”, which were reproduced last week, from Altintag Municipality in Ankara – administered by the ruling AKP party -, where employees were “killing, dismembering and torturing, stray dogs”. Then they buried them in a field. “The Act of Genocide Has Begun” argues our interlocutor, describing the most chilling version of the application of an “open”, as it turns out, in various “readings” of the law, which leaves “loopholes” for group killings, although it provides for euthanasia – and not dismemberment! – exclusively for strays who are sick, even with an incurable disease, or are dangerous for public safety.
Failure to sterilize
In the preparation of the relevant “climate” by the government and far-right – Islamist trolls, as the head of the Ideapolitik Institute think tank notes in “Vima” Ali Tirali, they formed associations to “clear the streets of stray dogs.” The head of one of them, Mr Murat Pinarclaimed that at least 75 people, including 44 children, have been killed since 2022 by either a direct attack by strays or a traffic accident caused by them. However, according to a recent survey by Yöneylem Research, only 6% of the population supports their “euthanasia”.
Based on calculations, 370,000 dogs can be sterilized annually in Turkey. What will happen to the rest of the strays, ask Turkish animal rights activists – the Erdogan government “photographs” them as the upper middle class, the “class enemy” of the popular classes who are “devoured” by the strays -, certain that the new law leads to “mass slaughter” for two additional reasons: the insufficient number of animal shelters and the “demonstrated failure to implement comprehensive sterilization programs” over a number of years. In the latter, municipal authorities also have a large share of responsibility.
Allothy for witch hunting
But adoption (the scenario, that is, one in 4-5 Turkish families taking care of a stray) is questioned by Turkish animal welfare organizations in a country where 51 million citizens live below the poverty line.
“The Republican People’s Party (CHP) voted against the law. He will not apply it to the municipalities where he prevailed. We are willing to pay the price” his vice-president and shadow Foreign Minister declares in “Vima”. Ilhan Uzcelknowing that there are prison terms of up to two years for mayors who do not comply. The opposition does not rule out that the legislation will be an alibi for a new “witch hunt” against its mayors such as Ekrem Imamoglouthe re-elected mayor of the Metropolitan Municipality of Constantinople.
However, the main opposition will not stand idly by. “We are preparing our appeal to the Constitutional Court” Uzcel adds, while Imamoglu plans “returning the city’s strays to the streets, after they have been vaccinated, neutered and chipped”.
The Federation of Animal Rights in Turkey (Haytap) has pinned much of its hopes on the opposition’s appeal, which has requested an investigation into the killing of strays in the Municipality of Ankara. “We must face the law of genocide” its president emphasizes in “Vima”. Ahmet Kemal Senpolat. Yes, the law stipulates that municipalities in all provinces and regions will have to improve animal shelters to accommodate them over a period of four years. “However, it ignores the aspect of their limited numbers. Stray attacks and their slaughter will continue unless the increase in the number of animals is stopped. This can only be achieved by the regional directorates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry”. This is why, together with NGOs and individual animal lovers, the Federation will put pressure on the provincial and regional directorates of the ministry “to begin implementing what has not been achieved to date: a national dog sterilization program.”
Memories of the horrors of 1910 awoke
The violent roundup and deportation of 80,000 dogs in 1910 to remote Oxia (Turkish Hayrsizanda) in the Princely Islands is considered one of the “most organized and large-scale animal genocides in world history”. On the rock island the animals died of starvation and dehydration, crushing each other. Their cries shook Constantinople for days. The event survived as a trauma in Turkish collective memory and was linked to subsequent natural disasters.
And during the reign of Sultan Mahmut II (1808-1839), following pressure from Western countries, there was a similar displacement of dogs. Their exile was revoked in time and the strays returned safely to the City.
In Turkey, cats were never targeted.
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