Turkish parliament commission starts debating controversial stray animal bill in heated session

A parliamentary commission has started debating the Turkish ruling AKP’s bill to remove stray dogs from the streets “until they are adopted,” and to kill “aggressive ones.” Animal rights advocates have been protesting the bill, deeming it a “massacre.”

Wednesday July 17 2024 10:40 pm

Ceren Bayar / DUVAR

The Turkish Parliament's Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Affairs Commission on July 17 started discussing the controversial bill aiming to round up millions of stray dogs.

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, dubbed by the AKP as “euthanasia.”

The bill alarmed animal rights advocates, who deemed it a “massacre.”

Several deputies, institution representatives, and journalists attended the commission’s first session, leaving most of them standing in a small meeting room. The commission’s head initially rejected the opposition’s offer to move to a bigger hall.

After the continuous objections, someone, reportedly a member of the “Safe Streets Platform,” told the commission head “Remove those who do not behave properly from the hall, this is Parliament.” The person left the hall after the opposition deputies' reactions.

As the objections to move to a bigger hall continued, someone from the ruling AKP standings told the pro-Kurdish DEM Party deputies, “You terrorize (the situation), you do not speak out against children dying in the mountains, but here you defend dogs.”

After a short break, the session was moved to a bigger hall with the participation of only deputies and journalists. The commission head said the representatives of civil society organizations would be allowed in the hall for the relevant articles. Then, the opposition deputies started objecting to not allowing the civil society organizations into the session.

At one point, a mother of a daughter who lost her life in a traffic accident while running away from a stray dog showed her daughter's shoe during the meeting while addressing the opposition deputies.

The deputies said the reason for the deaths of the children was the government, which had not put the relevant law into effective practice.

While the representatives of civil society organizations who opposed the proposal were not allowed into the hall, the presence of victims' families and representatives from the “Safe Streets Platform” drew another criticism.

During the session, the opposition deputies deemed the bill against the Constitution, demanding its removal or change.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Group Deputy Chair Murat Emir said, “Children are lives, but will you not accept stray dogs without owners as lives? We share this environment with stray animals. They're our life friends. We cannot see the right to kill them. This is murder. This is against the fundamental rights protected by our constitution. Don't get blood on your hands. There is no difference between killing an animal and killing a human being.”

Opposition DEM Party Group Deputy Chair Gülistan Kılıç Koçyi̇ği̇t said the government was exploiting the victims’ mothers’ pain. “A mother who lost her child, I share her pain. I wish her condolences, which is very sad, but I don't accept you exploiting a mother's pain. Exploiting emotions and trying to destroy a living creature or a species does not fit humanity's conscience.”

The opposition Good (İYİ) Party Group Deputy Chair Buğra Kavuncu said the government was responsible “for these victimizations.”

The opposition's motion to assess whether the proposal is unconstitutional was rejected with the votes of ruling deputies.

Discussions in the Parliament's Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Affairs Commission to debate the bill are expected to continue on July 18.

Meanwhile, animal rights advocates protested the bill in front of the Parliament.

Under current legislation, municipalities have to neuter and vaccinate all street dogs and leave them where they were found following treatment.

There are currently 322 animal shelters with a capacity to host a total of 105,000 dogs, according to the bill.

The draft bill also requires all municipalities to spend at least 0.3% of their annual budget on animal rehabilitation services and building shelters.

Municipalities will be given time until 2028 to build new shelters and improve current shelters, the bill says.

(English version by Alperen Şen)