Stop the mass slaughtering of street dogs in Bucharest, Romania

We, the undersigned, call upon the President of Romania, Mr Ion Iliescu, to put an immediate stop to the atrocious killings of street dogs in Bucharest and implement a spay/neuter and release and/or adoption programme.

Currently, the Mayor of Bucharest, Traian Basescu, has chosen to deal with the 200.000 - 300.000 strong street dog population in the most barbaric of manners: catch them and kill them. Proper euthanasia methods are not used; in fact the dogs have magnesium phosphate injected directly in to the heart. That is if they are not strangled during capture.

The vast majority of Romanians are horrified at this mass slaughter of dogs. In fact 86 percent of the Romanian population believe that a sterilisation programme is an effective method of controlling the ever-increasing number of street dogs. Public protest attended by several hundreds of citizens and members of Parliament is met by threats by Basescu to use riot police (April 21, 2001) to discourage any further protest. He is quoted as saying 'a few sticks on the backs of the attending senator and of the ladies from the protection organizations would be quite appropriate as a lesson on authority and public order'. Basescu also dismissed the Veterinary Doctor in charge of one of the shelters, Vasiliu Mariana, who refused to carry out the killings ordered by the Mayor.

The Mayor's violent approach to dealing with the street dog population has provoked more violence and as a result people took to the streets and started shooting dogs during the week of April 16, 2001. This bout of violence was followed by another horrific incident when several unidentified persons entered an apartment by force on Foisorului Street in Bucharest, beat an old lady and the three street dogs she was hiding with sticks and then threw the dogs over the balcony. All the dogs are dead and the woman is in hospital. The incident was documented in a news bulletin broadcasted on April 26 evening by PrimaTV, along with horrific images from inside the shelters of the City Hall.

In the same program, Mr. Mihai Voiculescu, a University Professor who is also a councilor in the City General Council and head of the Commission in charge of the monitoring of the program for the street dogs, confirmed that dogs are currently killed by strangulation or injections in the heart with Magnesium Phosphate (with no preliminary anesthesia) and the shelters of the City Hall, heavily guarded by armed people and closed to any visitor, are operating as "death camps". He also indicated that the most reliable estimation of the dog population in Bucharest (2.2 million inhabitants) is less than 60.000, as opposed to the 200.000 figure advanced by the Mayor to hint at huge costs required for a sterilisation program. More than 1000 dogs have been destroyed during the first week of Basescu's liquidation program.

THIS IS HAPPENING IN EUROPE IN THE YEAR 2001. Please help us stop this by adding your signature to this petition. Thank you.

For more information and photographs, please visit
www.paw-europe.com/projects
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