Turkish legislators have approved a law that make it legal to kill any number of the estimated 4 million stray dogs that are on the country’s streets.
Thousands of animal lovers have joined protests across Turkey calling for the removal of an article in the law that would allow for strays to be euthanised. Opposition lawmakers say the bill is a “massacre law”. The law was passed this week.
“Unfortunately this is true… we’re so sorry and angry,” our treehugger and activist friend Gökçe Uygun from Istanbul told Green Prophet. It hasn’t started just yet because it was only approved in the parliament 2 days ago, she said.
The Palestinian mayor in Hebron offered locals $6 USD a dead dog in 2022 to cull local populations in the West Bank from taking over the streets. Our friend and animal activist Diana Babish, from whom we have adopted 2 dogs in Ramallah, shut down the mayor and the ugly practice.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed the measure into law, thanked his ruling party: “Despite the opposition’s provocations and campaigns based on lies and distortions, the national assembly once again listened to the people, refusing to ignore the cries of the silent majority,” he said.
Erdogen is responsible for the Gezi Park protests. Erdogen is building Turkey to be nuclear as Germany shuts down its last reactor. Don’t forget about this couple murdered in Turkey for saving the trees.
Yet there are gentle nature lovers in Turkey who plant forests of trees. There are treehugging journalists in Istanbul. Like Turkey itself which straddles the East and West, there are people actively for and against the killing of pets.
About about 4 million stray dogs roam Turkey’s streets and rural areas. Most are harmless but they sometimes build up in packs and attack people. Many Muslims are terrified of dogs. Turkey is a Muslim majority population.
Why don’t Muslims like dogs?
Dogs are revered in Judaism for not barking when the Jews were escaping Egypt. They are loved by the pharaohs – tomb paintings of the pharaoh Tutankhamun show him in his chariot with his hunting dogs and Rameses the Great is depicted similarly. With Khufu and his companion, dogs were often buried with their masters in order to accompany them closely in the afterlife.
Dog is kalb in Arabic: كَلْب, dog which is similar to “kelev” in ancient Hebrew and there are different views on dogs and Islam. The Sunni Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence says the laws of impurity of dogs are different between wild dogs and pet dogs, and only consider the saliva of the former to be impure; on the other hand, some schools of Islamic law consider all dogs as unclean (najis).
Hundreds of people gathered in Istanbul and issued a message to the government which also supports Hamas terrorists: “Your massacre law is just a piece of paper for us. We will write the law on the streets. Life and solidarity, not hatred and hostility, will win.”
Animal lovers in the capital, Ankara read: “We are warning the government again and again, stop the law. Do not commit this crime against this country.”
Turkey’s main opposition party said it would work to cancel this law at the supreme court.
Endorsement, however, by Turkey’s unstable leader, could provoke locals to kill dogs when no one is supervising.
While Turkey had endorsed a law to catch, spay and then release stray dogs, critics say the law was not enforced. The same way building code laws in Turkey exist, but corners are taken and “safe” building crumble when there is an earthquake.
