At the end of July, a law came into force in Turkmenistan prohibiting the cruel treatment of stray dogs and their cruel extermination. On this occasion, the EU Delegation to Turkmenistan held a ten-day action "Love and Kindness".
“We support the recently approved law in Turkmenistan on “Dog Breeding and Cynological Activities” and urge everyone to be kinder to pets,” EU representatives said on the official Instagram page and urged subscribers to post photos or videos where they take care of their own or the homeless animals.
On August 17, a message was published on the same page that representatives of the EU delegation, together with the Society for the Conservation of Nature and volunteers, visited animal shelters in Anau "Aras Penje" and "Give Me Life" and handed over food and medicine.
"Arasa penje" contains 450 animals, "Give me life" - 70 dogs and 12 cats.
However, according to Radio Azatlyk, in reality, the adoption of the law had no effect on the practice of keeping and destroying stray animals, and EU representatives visited only exemplary shelters.
Conditions are much worse in other centers for capturing stray animals. The video sent to the editorial office of Azatlyk by a resident of Turkmenbat shows that dogs are thrown into cages right in the bags in which they were brought.
In Ashgabat, the main center for keeping captured animals is located in a hangar on the territory of a waste processing plant in Choganly. Animal activists describe it as a "concentration camp for dogs", saying that there are no cages and all animals are kept in the same room along with the corpses of the dead.
According to the publication, conditions that are painful for animals are created not only in reception centers, but also in veterinary clinics, where dogs that have bitten people are taken to a ten-day quarantine. Here the animals are kept in cages and are not allowed to be fed. If during this time the owner of the dog does not take it away, then the animal is killed by giving it food with poison, or slaughtered with rebar.
Sometimes activists raise money to ransom an animal in order to save a dog from being killed. In the Ashgabat veterinary clinic, located on Yerevanskaya Street, paperwork for the export of an animal costs 500 manats. The employees of the institution do not give a receipt.
Source: Chronicles of Turkmenistan