Defending dogs pays dividends in Erdogan’s Turkey
Following a public outcry, a Turkish court has suspended an app used to report the location of stray dogs after the information was allegedly used to kill canines.
Turkey’s notoriously politicized courts can show compassion after all. That, at any rate, is what animal lovers may have deduced from the 1st Criminal Court of Peace in Ankara’s decision to block a website and app that has been accused of complicity in the deaths of stray dogs.
The ruling followed a legal challenge that claimed Havrita was being used to track the animals and kill them. Havrita allows users to post photos and pin the whereabouts of stray canines.
Calls for a ban grew amid allegations that dogs located with the help of the app had been tortured and killed. Havrita, a composite of the Turkish words for “woof and map,” was launched in May. But the rising number of poisoned street dogs drew attention to the website.
At least eight animals were found dead in the tourist resort of Antalya near locations pinned on Havrita in recent days, the animal rights commission of the Istanbul Bar Association told the online news portal Gazete Duvar. It’s unclear who the perpetrators were.
