PodcastAnimal rights advocates once again protest controversial stray dog bill in Istanbul
Animal rights advocates have protested the ruling AKP’s bill, aiming to round up millions of stray dogs, in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district.
Duvar English
Animal rights advocates on July 27 gathered in Istanbul’s Kadıköy district to protest the controversial stray animal bill.
The bill was recently accepted by a parliamentary commission, and will be voted on in a general session to be enacted or not.
Presented to the Parliament by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the bill would charge municipalities with getting strays off the street and into shelters until they are adopted. “Aggressive” dogs or any with untreatable diseases would be killed, previously dubbed by the AKP as “euthanasia.”
The advocates deem the bill the “massacre law.”
They opened up banners reading “You can't round up, you can't imprison, you can't kill” in Kadıköy district on July 27, ANKA Agency reported.
In a press release, the advocates said, “First they wanted to glamorize the massacre as 'sedation'. Then they started calling it 'euthanasia'. When they realized that the public reaction to the bill was not diminishing, they said they removed euthanasia from the bill. However, even though the word euthanasia has been removed from the proposal, it is still a proposal for slaughter. Local governments will have the authority to kill animals, without any other reason, if they believe that the animal population on the streets is high.”