Oh My Dog

Issue #213

Shout out to the Turkish guy who complained about lax US border controls after paying a cartel to enter the country.

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In this week’s recap:

• Reported street dog plan stirs debate

• Constitution reform meets resistance

• Morals-based school curriculum approved

• EU renews support for Syrians

• Erdoğan calls Netanyahu a “vampire”

• Sultans of the Net served economy seats

Also from Turkey recap:

• Elif Akgül on the 1000th protest of Turkey’s Saturday Mothers

• Gonca Tokyol and Ingrid Woudwijk on how the CHP flipped Adıyaman

İlhan pictured with Zeytin (bottom) and Babişko (top). © Diego Cupolo

“That one’s Zeytin, and that one’s Babişko,” İlhan said, pointing at two stray dogs while he mixed shredded chicken with canned dog food Wednesday afternoon.

“There’s been complaints about Zeytin because sometimes she bites people,” the retired Cihangir resident continued. “But she’s not a bad dog. People have hit her many, many times so she has trauma and can react aggressively.”

For years, İlhan has fed strays near the İstanbul neighborhood’s Firuz Ağa mosque, but on Thursday (today) he said he’d take Zeytin to a private dog shelter in Beykoz to get her off the streets.

Covering the cost out-of-pocket, İlhan is one of many animal rights supporters concerned about a reported law proposal concerning street dogs across Turkey.

Details are not published yet, but media reported the AKP draft law aimed to collect street dogs on a mass scale, bring them to shelters and euthanize those which are not adopted within 30 days. Such a plan would essentially result in the killing of hundreds of thousands of street dogs.

Public outcry followed, including calls for a protest Sunday in İstanbul. Opposition politicians, as well as YRP’s Fatih Erbakan, spoke out against the plans.

AKP might take a step back, as AKP Group Deputy Chairman Bahadır Yenişehirlioğlu told BBC Türkçe there is no final draft law yet, and that consultations would continue for about 10 more days.

Pres. Erdoğan Wednesday made extensive comments on the issue, saying: “We need to solve this problem in a radical way.” Yet he focused on the importance of adoption, and did not mention putting dogs to sleep.

He did say the number of stray dogs in Turkey is estimated to be 4 million, and that the majority of the citizens are bothered by this, which is backed by research from the Presidency’s Communications Directorate – and your average day on Ekşi Sözlük or Turkish Reddit.

İlkan Dalkuç, a political commentator with Daktilo1984, said while there have long been street dogs in Turkey, a lack of sterilization policies, negligence on the side of the authorities and the constant availability of food has resulted in a higher number of strays.

“Dogs and sympathy towards dogs are always an area of cultural division in Turkey,” Dalkuç told Turkey recap.

Let’s remember 2021, when Erdoğan blamed street dog problems on “white Turks” – meaning the secular elite. Yet many citizens are genuinely afraid of dogs and serious incidents occurred over the years, although there are also political factors at play.

“YRP and Zafer [Party] voters are the most outspoken anti-street dog campaigners,” Dalkuç said, adding the AKP might want to target those voters.

Since a large number of local administrations are held by CHP, the AKP may also plan to leave solving the issue to them.

On Wednesday, Dalkuç discussed the topic with political scientist Burak Bilgehan Özpek on the Daktilo broadcast, where the pair stated the real issue, in general, is the government's radical solutions for problems that need to be addressed.

“Ruthlessness, rigidness and excessive blaming are the main characteristics of online frenzy politics,” Dalkuç said, adding: “[This] is ruining the public debate, diminishing a deeper and a comprehensive understanding of issues.”

“I actually don’t expect much from all this shouting and noise,” Dalkuç continued. “There is a real anti-euthanisia majority in the Turkish population which exceeds urban seculars. There may be a decrease in the number of street dogs but I don't see a ‘lasting solution’ … on the horizon.”

– Ingrid Woudwijk