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.”

“We have said it before: Animals do not need anyone's pity. Animals do not need anyone's conscience. We seek neither conscience nor compassion. Animals have the right to life and we will defend this right to the end. We know that defending the right to life is not only legitimate but also a duty for us. We will stand firm against those who offer killing as a solution, no matter what.”