TURKMENABAT, Turkmenistan – Canine catchers in Turkmenabat have been tasked with capturing and killing at the least seven stray canine day-after-day, locals say, as authorities in Turkmenistan’s second largest metropolis proceed a brutal marketing campaign of animal cruelty.
There aren’t many stray canine or cats left on the streets of Turkmenabat, and people accused of exterminating them generally take away folks’s pets to attain their every day objective, a number of canine homeowners have complained.
In a single recognized case, canine hunters took away a canine that had been tied up exterior a grocery store whereas the proprietor was purchasing for groceries, residents informed RFE / RL.
The authoritarian state of Central Asia has lengthy been criticized for the systematic slaughter of stray animals with barbaric strategies.
In Turkmenabat, a metropolis of round 250,000, every housing administration firm is liable for hiring folks to hold out cat and canine culling actions in its neighborhood.
One such firm within the metropolis’s Khimki district was just lately named essentially the most profitable in exterminating stray animals, RFE / RL correspondents reported, citing officers and residents.
However a few of the canine caught in Khimki final week turned out to be companion canine.
Outraged canine homeowners requested the administration firm to return their pets, solely to seek out that they’d already been destroyed, locals informed RFE / RL.
Merciless strategies
Turkmenabat residents additionally accuse canine hunters of utilizing brutal strategies to seize animals and maintain them in appalling circumstances.
A graphic video of an alleged dog-catching sweep in Turkmenabat exhibits three animal management officers beating two screaming canine with a pole earlier than throwing them into the again of a rubbish truck.
One other ugly video, additionally despatched by Turkmenabat, purports to point out animal corpses inside soiled cages in dilapidated dungeon-like premises.
A number of residents informed RFE / RL that each one privately condemn the way in which the sweeps are carried out, however are too afraid to publicly criticize or argue with housing administration corporations, as they rely on housing managers to acquire certificates that enable them to obtain backed meals in authorities shops.
Sponsored meals is a lifeline for many individuals in Turkmenistan, which has been plagued with persistent meals shortages and value will increase for at the least 5 years. Certificates indicating every individual’s deal with and the variety of folks residing in a family have to be up to date month-to-month.
Sarcastically, the newest sweep in Turkmenabat got here when the federal government adopted a new regulation July 25 banning cruelty to animals.
The regulation – which was handed shortly after RFE / RL’s Turkmen service revealed reviews on the nation’s merciless methods of coping with strays – prohibits inflicting damage or different critical hurt to canine or depriving them of meals, water, sleep, and so forth. relaxation or train.
It additionally forbids the usage of strategies that trigger canine “pointless struggling after they catch or regulate the quantity” of strays.
Activists known as the regulation “hypocritical” contemplating what has been practiced and mentioned the Turkmen authorities are unlikely to adjust to it anytime quickly.
Turkmenistan has been criticized for its longstanding follow of exterminating cats and canine by poisoning them, beating them to loss of life, ravenous them or killing them by refusing to present them water.
Municipal authorities usually bribed native youngsters to present poisoned sausages or bread to stray cats and canine to kill them, animal rights advocates mentioned.
Canine hunters commonly beat up strays on the verge of loss of life on the streets.
In an incident in Ashgabat, eyewitnesses informed RFE / RL that an animal management officer was seen beating a canine and its puppies with a pole in entrance of kids in a kindergarten.
Authorities have by no means publicly addressed widespread criticism of the nation’s cruelty to cats and canine of their nation.
The desert nation is happy with their native canine breed, the Alabai, who’re nicknamed “wolf crushers” for his or her ferocity and formally listed as a part of Turkmenistan’s nationwide heritage.
Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhammedov and his predecessor (and father), Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, have been usually photographed with canine and horses.
The previous president devoted a e book to the alabais and declared the final Sunday in April Alabai Day in honor of the well-known breed.
There’s additionally a 6-meter-tall gold statue of an Alabai – Turkmenistan’s costliest canine – in a central sq. within the capital, Ashgabat.