Thousands of Turks protest controversial law to remove stray dogs

ISTANBUL (AP) — Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Istanbul on Sunday to protest latest laws that critics say is resulting in the killing of stray canines throughout Turkey.

Final month, legislators authorised the new regulation aimed toward eradicating thousands and thousands of stray canines from Turkish streets citing security issues. Animal-lovers worry it can result in widespread culling or canines ending up in disease-ridden and overcrowded shelters.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned the regulation was essential to take care of the nation’s “stray canine downside.”

Sunday’s protesters known as for the regulation to be repealed, brandishing posters studying ‘shelters are dying camps’ and ‘withdraw the bloody regulation.’

“We wish this regulation to be withdrawn instantly,” protester Hasan Kizilyatak, 64, informed The Related Press. “They (stray canines) live beings, identical to us. We’re right here as a result of we’re in opposition to them being annihilated.”

Ayten Arslan, 55, who mentioned she helps Erdogan, additionally confirmed as much as protest.

“Identical to we stood beside our president on July 15 (2016) when there was a coup try, we’re right here for the stray animals,” she informed the AP. “I say as an AK Get together supporter, this regulation, is a bloody regulation.”

The primary opposition Republican Folks’s Get together moved to repeal the regulation within the Constitutional Court docket lower than two weeks after it handed.

The federal government estimates that round 4 million stray canines roam Turkey’s streets and rural areas. Though most are innocent, a number of folks, together with kids, have been attacked.

A report launched by the Secure Streets and Protection of the Proper to Life Affiliation, a corporation campaigning for the elimination of all stray canines from the streets, says that 65 folks have died in road canine assaults since 2022.

The brand new laws requires municipalities to gather stray canines and home them in shelters to be vaccinated, neutered and spayed earlier than making them out there for adoption. Canines which might be in ache, terminally ailing or pose a well being danger to people will probably be euthanized. The preliminary draft invoice included cats, however that article was modified after a public outcry.

Nonetheless, many query the place cash-strapped municipalities would discover the cash to construct the mandatory additional shelters required.

Animal rights activists fear that some municipalities would possibly kill canines on the pretext that they’re ailing quite than allocate assets to shelter them.

Movies exhibiting lifeless cats and canines buried in ditches have been circulating on social media not too long ago. Animal rights activists say the animals had been indiscriminately killed after the passage of the regulation.