CAIRO: A Lebanese municipality police station went onto the streets in a Beirut neighborhood on Wednesday and shot dozens of stray dogs. After the violence ended, police walked away, leaving the carnage of the murder for all to see. “It is shocking and disturbing to think that our government has done this,” Lena Bashara, a resident living near Beirut's Hegaz street told Bikya Masr via telephone on Thursday morning. Eyewitnesses said they saw mothers attempt to defend their puppies as police came into the area shooting. According to one report, police were targeting the puppies specifically. “One puppy we vaccinated and was very friendly went to hide behind his mom and the porter, but the policeman shouted at the porter and told him he does not move he will shoot him too,” said Khaled Hesham Halawa, an animal welfare advocate in Lebanon. “The puppy was killed in front of his mom.” When the police station was contacted by Bikya Masr on Thursday morning, they said they were worried about leaving the bodies on the street, but held no qualms about the mass killing. “These are stray dogs and there is no place for them on the street, so we did what everyone would do,” said a police official in Beirut. “We are concerned now about the health situation so are trying to get a clean-up crew to destroy the bodies.” In August, the Burj Hammoud neighborhood in Beirut was warned that the government would begin shooting dogs. “Burj Hammoud town municipality announces launching a campaign against stray dogs night and day,” the statement warns. “So we ask citizens not to panic when hearing gun shots and coordinate with the police officials to end this phenomena [stray dogs].” According to leading animal rights organization Animals Lebanon, the shooting of stray dogs is “nothing new” to the country. Jason Mier, Animals Lebanon's Executive Director, argued that this sort of announcement to the public is “taking the killing to a different level by warning people in a densely populated area not to be worried if they hear guns being fired.” The rights group told Bikya Masr in August that they were contacting the municipality's officials in an attempt to get them to stop with the killing. They have also made calls to their support groups and on their Facebook page for residents and Lebanese citizens to contact the government to end the killing of animals. “This action is illegal under the Lebanese and international animal laws,” Mier said. Across the region, including in Egypt, police have often been deployed to shoot stray dogs when local residents complain. Although it is not new, rights groups such as Animals Lebanon and others have regularly condemned such actions. One problem facing the region when it comes to stray animals is the lack of appropriate shelters to host strays, which means the government can argue they have little choice in the slaughter. BM
