But is the dose of this cruelty the same for humans and animals? Does the struggle continue in the same way for both? At this point, we need to mention a few topics.

It may be useful, useless, applicable, not applicable, but there is a fundamental difference in terms of legal status. The child or adult human species can rely on a written text that guarantees the right to life. International conventions, the Constitution and laws also include this. In terms of animals, we do not have such a text. Do not think of the struggle for animal rights as today, as this period has begun. Before the Animal Protection Law came into effect in 2004, it was a vastly different struggle. After the law came into force in 2004, even though the law had many shortcomings, it added a different tool to the struggle. The law changed in 2021. It still has many shortcomings, but it has given us new tools, albeit a little, but the laws on animals did not say, ‘all animals have the right to life’, it still does not say. The things we define as tools only work for cats and dogs. When we say deer, we come across the huge Hunting Law. Animals in slaughterhouses, experiments, and zoos are not protected under the Animal Protection Law. The point we want to underline is this: For most of the animals, methods such as public awareness activities for cats and dogs, street protests, similar to the struggle made before 2004, still continue.

On the one hand, victims of other rights struggles are perpetrators in terms of animal rights struggles. Eating animals, wearing animals, using materials tested on animals have become the norm of human life. Such normalized systematic violations exist only in the struggle for animal rights. On the other hand, there is also the point of view of those involved in the struggle for human rights that they find the struggle for animal rights unnecessary when human rights violations are so intense.

Third, there is a general perception of society that sees human life as superior. A perception of society that accepts the death of an animal as normal and right for the sake of man. It is not easy to break it either. From the moment we are born, this is imposed both within the family and in every social environment we are in. It is not easy to break free of these truths. We were not even aware of it up to a point. From the moment we realize it, we try to change ourselves. That is why we see animals as the lowest link in the chain of exploitation. There is exploitation wherever we turn our heads, but we still have not been able to convince a significant part of the society about the right to life of cats and dogs. That is why we do not have the luxury of stopping and despairing. In the environment we live in, where you feel about whatever subject, animals are going through worse. We are not able to look into their faces as we have accomplished nothing. At least we must fight relentlessly.

When this is the general framework of animal rights, we also need to develop strategies for violations that are considered legal in the fight.

We are talking about titles such as hunting, slaughterhouses, experiments. The fight against these issues goes both ways. First of all, we need to be conscious and raise awareness. We need to get the general public to call them murders. A top-down law does not come into existence until society is ready. The reaction of the society about cats and dogs was comparatively high, and in 2004 the Animal Protection Law was enacted. The persecution of phaetons in Istanbul Islands came to an end with the vigil of life, as the voice of riding a phaeton started to get louder in the community recently. It takes a long time, but the effort pays off. We must not give up on this leg of the struggle.

On the other hand, we need to chase the legal loopholes of these legal killings. Because practitioners generally do not even feel the need to abide by the legal rules of murder. By using these vulnerabilities, we need to disrupt the practitioner’s work and put him in a difficult position. The closest and best example in this regard is hunting tourism auctions. For two years, non-governmental organizations and bar associations have seriously focused on this issue, and this focus has positive results. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the chief organizer of the murder, does not even deign to comply with the murder rules set by the legislator. This short-sightedness of the Ministry of course opens up a key area for us. By using these violations of the law, we have the chance to press the Ministry through the judiciary, disrupt its work, and most importantly, save the animals it wants to kill.

Another example is about experiments. One non-governmental organization member working in the field of animal protection should be elected to the Hayvan Deneyleri Merkezi Etik Kurulu (Animal Experiments Center Ethics Committee – HADMEK), but they filled this quota with the Laboratuvar Hayvanları Bilimi Derneği (Laboratory Animal Science Association), which produces animals to be used in experiments, as if making fun of it. This transaction was canceled with the lawsuit filed by Burak Özgüner. This was a good example of struggle, but the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has now started to seek to change the regulation in order not to implement the court decision.

In some cases, we may need to intervene directly in order to save the animal. In such cases, we may have to harm the property or people, which is the cause of the animal’s plight. Such interventions should be considered as a legitimate defense or a state of necessity, but of course, there is no guarantee that it will be viewed this way in our legal system. Therefore, in such situations, we should be able to take risks to save the animal.

While we continue to struggle in this way with the state wing, we also have to deal with the problems that arise from within ourselves. Since the subject is animals and animals do not have the opportunity to make a sound or disclose what is done, most people see this medium as a space for enrichment, making their name heard, and being present. By using animals and people who are sensitive about animals, they provide themselves with material and moral benefits. These insincerity and bad intentions of these people harm our firm stance against the state. We can say this very clearly: These two-faced people are far more dangerous than people who openly describe themselves as ‘animal haters’.

Yet another problem we have in the community: People forget the purpose of their existence for the struggle after a point and start to focus on themselves. In the work done for animals, in the steps taken, rather than evaluating whether the result is good for the animals or not, they busy themselves with who does the work, tries to put themselves forward, and in the continuation of this point of view, it comes to the point of underestimating and trivializing each other’s struggles.

While we deal with ourselves and each other in the community in this way, animals continue to suffer the most serious violations. That is why we should all be aware of the seriousness of the danger and learn to fight only for the welfare of animals, without taking our focus off the animal. As long as we do not do this and maintain our weak image, we can go back 30 years in the struggle with a circular or a news reflected in the press.

Barış Karlı

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The increase in rights violations in the last two years, allocation of KOSGEB subsidies last month to industries responsible for animal abuse, removal from the bill’s scope of animal massacre in the form of hunting, exclusion of animal species other than cats and dogs due to pressure from rent-seeking lobbies, and continued depiction of sexual abuse towards animals as “sexual intercourse with animals” were the last straw in the eyes of animal rights advocates. 

After calling on all political parties in the Parliament to pass an animal-friendly, fair, radical and transformative law for years, activists took to the streets to slam the misguiding press conferences by lawmakers and to protest their decisions going against animals’ rights. 

On the other hand, before the protests, nearly 70 human rights and ecology organizations and formations as well as bar associations signed a press release raising these demands, and supported the appeal made to the Parliament. 

“Enough is Enough: We Demand a Law to Protect Life!”

Activists defending animals’ right to live organized simultaneous protests in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya and Şanlıurfa to emphasize that the bill currently drafted does not embrace a “rights-based perspective”. Furthermore, rights advocates in Diyarbakır and Konya gave their support to the protest by reading out loud the press release demanding “A Law to Protect Life”. The activists stated that the positive steps for animal rights put forth in the commission’s report have been crossed out from the bill, and that provisions encouraging violence towards animals and covering up animal abuse were once again making their way back to the bill. 

In the press release, it was stated in very clear terms that animals’ rights cannot be compromised for political ambitions, and that these rights come to the public agenda only before elections or after violations that cause huge uproar. 

Animal rights advocates once again called on lawmakers, who claimed in press conferences at the Parliament that they were supposedly drafting a “revolutionary” bill to protect animals: “Stop trying to deceive the public by claiming that you stand with animals. If, instead of working so hard to protect the facilities where animals are caged and exploited, you had upheld animal rights, it would have been possible to prevent so much death and suffering in the last 17 years.” 

“We Aren’t Going Anywhere!”

In the press release, activists emphasized that as long as lawmakers ignore the demands of the civil society, they will raise their demands in an ever louder voice: “We aren’t going anywhere until we reclaim animals’ rights. We state once again that a bill upholding the interests of not animal-abusing industries but those of animals themselves must be swiftly finalized, and that animal rights should no longer be compromised. We raise our voices once again to say, ‘We demand a law to protect life!’”

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However, animals’ rights, already continuously ignored, were once again set aside due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the bill was once again postponed. For now, we only know that Animal Rights Bill will be discussed in the plenary session of the Turkish parliament in the near future, although we do not know exactly when. However, neither the opposition nor the activists have seen the bill in question. The fact that the bill has not been shared with the public and various remarks made by AKP representatives have led to a public uproar; as a result, on March 11, AKP invited some non-governmental organizations to Ankara to present them the bill and hold discussions.

As we were waiting for the bill, the government continued to issue contradictory statements. The Coordinator of the Animal Rights Monitoring Commission, Fatma Biltekin, indicates the following about the government’s statements: “Since we have not seen the bill, we don’t have the answers to questions such as ‘Will there be sanctions against people who have more than three animals at home? Will the Ministry confiscate their animals? If yes, where will their animals be sent?’ We cannot accept such a clause sanctioning people who take to their homes animals -which actually ought to be taken care of by municipalities- so as to protect them from violence, as well as the animals which are in need of help. Moreover, our homes are our private space and the state should not interfere with the private space.”

Another ambiguity concerns the government’s statements that those using violence towards animals will face prison sentences. However, the same statements indicate that the lower limit of the sentence will be 6 months, and as is known, as per the new amendment to the Law on Criminal Enforcement, sanctions whose lower limit is less than 3 years are converted into administrative fines, and deferred. Therefore, at this stage, we can say that the government’s statements lack credibility baseless.

Overall we can say that -since we have a general idea of how the system functions in Turkey- these statements are very ambiguous, and we will most probably face numerous challenges when it comes to sanctions, implementation and supervision. As is already the case with the rather problematic Law no. 5199, it will be unclear where we might apply to when we encounter a violation of animal rights. Should we file an application with the prosecutor’s office, go to the police station, or pen a petition? What can we do to mobilize everyone to bring about justice for animals? We still do not know the answer. 

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