Here’s What’s Been Happening To Turkey’s Stray Dogs Since The ‘Massacre’ Law Passed

Trigger warning: this article contains links to videos of animal cruelty.

Since the passing of new Turkish legislation – deemed as the ‘massacre law’ by activists – at the end of July, pictures and videos have been shared on social media revealing the scale of abuse towards stray dogs; and it’s exactly what activists warned of when the bill was being debated.

The new law, introduced by President Tayyip Erdoğan in response to concerns about the estimated four million stray dogs in the country, mandates that municipalities will have to collect stray dogs and house them in government-run shelters where they would be neutered and spayed. Dogs who are terminally ill, pose a health risk to humans, or are aggressive will be euthanised under the law. 

When the legislation passed at the end of July, activists feared that dogs would be killed as shelters wouldn’t be able to house the overwhelmingly large number of dogs on the streets. 

“The new law sends a clear message to street dogs and to those who look after them,” a post from the charity Animal Friends of Turkey reads. “You’re on your own, the government doesn’t care about you.”

It continues, saying the law is “essentially a free pass for anyone wanting to create problems for street dogs”.

Now, only a month after the law’s passing, there are images and videos swirling around on social media of mistreated dogs and mass graves preparing for their impending deaths. Photojournalist Tunahan Turhan has been documenting the grim reality of what is happening on the country, as well as the impact on animal rights activists and locals on Instagram.

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Are the reports true?

“Most of it is true,” Ahmet Kemal Senpolat, a lawyer and president of Animal Rights Federation in Turkey (HAYTAP), says about the posts circulating on social media. “We keep receiving news of ill treatment or killing from different parts of the country.”

Municipalities, according to Ahmet, are now “fearless” and “bare faced” because of the law. 

“They are doing anything they can do to get rid of the surplus of dogs,” he says. “They are and will be committing more violence against dogs under cover of collecting street animals for public health and safety. Their cruel actions are varied: picking up animals from their own area to throw them in the middle of nowhere, poisoning them after collecting, squeezing the dogs into tiny holes called shelters, and killing them inside or outside those shelters.”

Lisanne Hilley, a 34-year-old activist living in Aydın, Turkey who runs Melez, a private shelter for more than 70 dogs and partners with  Animal Friends of Turkey, says she is worried about what is happening in areas where there aren’t animal lovers.

“We only know what is going on in areas where there are large and strong enough groups of animal rights activists to diligently observe what the municipalities and shelters are doing,” she says. “We are in the dark about what is happening in areas where there aren’t people to track what the authorities are doing.”

She has been told of mass graves found in different parts of Turkey, ready for a surplus of dogs. Even before the new law, she suspects these mass graves were being made use of as the poor conditions of Turkey’s shelters meant that dogs were dying daily in shelters of starvation, illness or injury. She expects they will be filled faster now. 

“New dogs are definitely being killed, but to what extent this is more than how things were before is impossible to verify,” she says. “Many of the bodies of the dogs found in the mass graves appear to show signs of brutal violence, but again, as neither the shelters nor the municipalities are under any obligation to truthfully report what they are doing, all we can do is speculate what horrors those dogs went through.”

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Lisanne confidently says that cases of animal abuse on the streets have increased. 

“For the portion of the population who doesn’t like dogs, the new law is being seen as a free pass to do whatever they like to strays,” she says. She believes that cases of mass poisoning of street dogs by citizens have increased.

Ahmet worries all of this is simply for political purposes – that’s it’s being done “just to win the locals’ approval for less strays.” 

“It’s a sign of improved public health and smaller burdens on the public budget,” he continues. “They do not care about their methods for the sake of pleasing some citizens. No matter how unjust or inhumane they are, they can come clean with one blurry justification: the dogs were dangerous.”

How do locals and tourists feel?

Just as there was a split of opinion when the law was being debated, the public is split in the aftermath of its passing. 

“On one side, there is the majority of the public which opposes the massacre law,” Ahmet says. “On the other side, there is a heterogenous group of animal massacre fans.”

Those who oppose the law are frustrated and anxious, desperately trying their best to keep dogs alive and healthy. 

“Private shelters and animal lovers who don’t have a shelter are desperately trying to look for ways to keep their beloved strays safe,” Lisanne says. “There have been some heartwarming stories of owners of unused plots of land offering the land up for free for anyone who wants to build a safe shelter for street dogs there. 

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But Lisanne says the sizeable group in favour of the law are “happy that the rights of stray dogs they hate so much have been diminished.”

Since the announcement of the law, tourists around the world have decided not to visit Turkey in protest. 

“Do not travel to Turkey where millions of cats and dogs are being brutally murdered on the orders of [Erdoğan],” one person wrote on Twitter. “They do not deserve visitors in that vile country.”

Ahmet “likes to see” the protest, but says he “can’t see much influence of it on the government’s actions”.

Even so, he hopes they continue.

Is there an appeal?

On 15 August, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) applied to the Constitutional Court on Thursday to annul the law. 

“We call on the Constitutional Court to cancel all articles of the related law and prevent the inhumane treatment of innocent lives,” senior lawmaker Gokhan Gunaydin said when the appeal was made. 

Ahmet says the appeal argues the new law is “against the basic right to life for certain species”.

The appeal also raises a problem regarding the confusion about what can be done to the animals and by whom.

“Although we believe these two arguments are strong enough to cancel the legislation, we are not optimistic about the result since the overall Turkish judiciary system is not functioning properly,” he says. 

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Is there anything that people can do?

While Ahmet continues to work with colleagues to appeal the law, he says there is plenty that people supporting the rights of animals can do, including starting neuter and release campaigns. He thinks if it is shown to be an effective means of controlling the stray dog population, the government might be persuaded to use it. 

He also asks for animal lovers to continue visiting government-run shelters in Turkey. 

“The staff can then notice the public eye on them,” he says. “It may also show the government that animals are not ownerless.”

Lisanne says people in private shelters are “overwhelmed” responding to the cries for help for dogs who need saving from government-run shelters. She’d love to see more adoptions and support. 

“All the media coverage a few weeks ago led to a spike in adoption applications, which was amazing, but these are now also slowly trickling off and things are becoming quiet,” she says. “So we have all taken in many new dogs, but the increased interest in adopting dogs from Turkey is starting to wane and we will be left with over-full shelters.”

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What can I do?

To join in the fight you can  share images and videos on social media – especially those with info written in languages other than Turkish – to help generate a global awareness.

There is also a  petition to sign  (a  translated version exists here) that calls for an urgent sterilisation campaign and the banning of pet sales instead of rounding up and euthanising them, and  another petition calling on the Turkish government to reverse the bill.

If you’re able to, you can also donate money to charities such as  Animal Friends of Turkey  or  HAYTAP.