ICAM'e hayır: ICAM not wanted! - Yunuslara Özgürlük Platformu

#‎dogpop2015 #NoToICAM! ‪#ICAMSCAM #dogconference2015

To ICAM and International Conference on Dog Population Management

We are informed that the second conference on dog population management, which was organized previously by you in England last year, is going to take place in İstanbul on 3th – 5th March İstanbul.

We are protesting this conference and we are not going to make it happen because of your coalitions’ policy on “animal welfare”, which is based on ignoring animals’ right to live and because of the reason that this policy of yours is in conformity with new Animal Protection Bill (5199 Hayvanları Koruma Kanunu Yasa Tasarısı), that is in Turkey’s political agenda recently which is going to enable more animal killings by the municipalities.

When we examine the three brochures in your updated web page, we saw that you are putting forward some claims and assumptions that will form a basis for more animal killings by the state in Turkey. Your assertion, which is claiming to be scientific, that street animals are causing epidemics and other zoonotic sicknesses like rabies is historically and scientifically false. However, more importantly your claims both encourage and act as a supportive ground for thousands of animals to be killed with the excuse of “protecting public health”, instead of having state agencies and local administrations taking real preventive precautions on human health.

As we find the “animal welfare” policy, politically highly problematic, your assertion towards framing street animals as being against human health is even inconsistent with the “animal welfare” policy defended by your own coalition. We declare that we are starting a political, intellectual and social resistance against your animal hostile assertions which is encouraging violence on street animals by human beings, targeting the public belonging of animals and legitimizing animal killings by the state.

Another claim in your brochure is equally scandalous: Your coalition is defending “euthanasia”, which is killing of the animal by chemicals.

Euthanasia means ending a persons’ life by his or her own will. It cannot be applied on animals. When applied it is murder. Your claim about euthanasia being a “humane” practice and that it is for animal welfare is basically inconsistent and hypocritical. We see that you take the mission of legitimizing and necessitating animal killings by local administrations in public opinion. In İstanbul, that you choose as a pilot zone for your coalition, in these months where we are struggling against the huge concentration camps for street animals constructed by İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality juristically and politically, we are certainly not going to let you accomplish your mission.

Your coalition did not prefer to make partnership with any of the associations who had been working on street animals’ life, health, public presence and status in Turkey, nor did you consult their opinion. The entrance fees for the conference being very high proves that you are preferring to prevent any criticism towards your aim to sow the seeds of local practices of animal culling and your vision of non-animalization of the cities.

In Turkey, where the history of living with street animals is rooted in historical geography, we are not going to allow the top-down placement of the “animalless city” image created by especially the North American and West European metropolises by killing hundreds of thousands of animals every year, detached from locality, with a scientific approach that legitimizes the state and power politics.

You are not wanted in İstanbul or in any city in Turkey. Because of the reasons mentioned above we are calling you to cancel the conference that you are planning to do on March 3rd to 5th.

We are not going to allow you to wash the blood off the governments’ and the local administrations’ hands, to deflect public opinion with false and inconsistent claims, to encourage official and public violence against animals.

As animal rights defenders and animal liberation activists we are not going to warn you one more time.