About Doing the Right Thing

By Olga Vernon

A massive protest against the City of Belgrade and all of its officials will be held on Saturday, April 21 at 14:00, in front of the Parliament building in Belgrade. The protest is organized by the European Initiative 17.

Serbia is one of the last counties in Europe that adopted the Animal Welfare Law, in June 2009. According to the Serbian Animal Welfare Law, the local authorities are under obligation to carry out a strategy for resolving the problem of stray animals (Article 54). They do not!
Since the adoption, the Law has not been implemented, and local regulations weren't harmonized with it.
Citizens and the authorities are not educated in humane animal issues and furthermore most of them do not care. The improvement of animal welfare is not the priority of Serbian government officials (Serbian Ministry for agriculture, the Department for Veterinary).
We witness brutal scenes of animal abuse almost every day: stray dogs and cats are poisoned, burned, cut, slaughtered, shot, beaten by individuals who aren't punished for their crimes against animals (forbidden since January 2006 by Serbian Criminal Law, Article 269).
Local authorities across Serbia hire city communal firms to catch and kill stray animals, violating laws and the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, including all International Animal Protection Laws. Two million Euros a year is being allocated to Serbia for animal protection and welfare - where is the money?

Animals are dying of hunger and disease at overcrowded animal shelters (see article by Birgit Lewe below) while the corrupt state and city government officials and their advertising "tools", the media, are turning their heads from the problem, stealing the money and reporting to the world that all is well in Serbia.

We ask of you to please support our efforts, inform International media about our protest and about the horrendous animal abuse (primarily by the government) problem in Serbia and help us save our beloved, suffering animals.

Desperate for help animal lovers in Serbia

By Birgit Lewe www.docs4dogs.org
Serbia and its Protection of Animals Act Article 269 of the Serbian criminal code (1.1.2006) says:
$1: Everyone, who agonizes an animal, causes pain to the animals or kills it, like described in this law, has to expect up to 6 months imprisonment.
$2: If someone causes pain or agony to more than just one animal a punishment of imprisonment up to 3 years can be enunciated. Everyone who is cruel or barbarous to a special protected animal (badger or bear), has to expect up to 3 years imprisonment.

Furthermore, article 46 of the Veterinary Law says:
* Animals have to right to live.
* There is no law, which says that that animals have to be euthanized to solve the problem with the stray dogs.
* Every community has the obligation to care for abandoned dogs and cats.
* Every community has the obligation to finance the supply of the stray dogs, also according to the construction of animal shelters.
* Every community has the obligation to finance sterilization, medical supply and feed for the strays. As an alternative, the country can allocate premiums to volunteers who have, due to their job, contact to cats and dogs.

Well, everyone, who is involved in animal protection from abroad, has heard a lot about the outrage against animals in Serbia.

Dogs, which had been struck dead, poisoned, buried alive, letting starved. Thousands were killed or bad injured by cruel capture manners and so on.
The existing Protection of Animals Act is not implemented in the practice. Even in Serbia it is not recognized, that the problem with the stray dogs can only be solved or changed by thinking prophylactic. That means: Decreasing the birth-rate.

At the moment, the Serbian government spends money for illegal killings, although the existing law says, that this money has to be spent for supply, sterilization, vaccination and chipping of the animals:
The "Shinters" (dog catchers) receive 5,000 - 10,000 Dinars for every captured and killed dog. In comparison to this, the costs for sterilization and chipping amount to 3,000 Dinars (30 Euros).

So with the money spent for capturing and killing a dog, 3 female or 5 male dogs could be sterilized or chipped....

After the capturing, done with worst bestiality, the dogs were cooped together in usually extreme narrow rooms, where they were left to their own devices without feed or water.
Because of the fulminating panic, most dogs start to bite. Then the bad hunger comes along. Most of the dogs already die during this "keeping time". They are finally killed after a few days. Not even painless, no, but also killed in a brutal way, either by neurotoxin substance T61, gas or direct violence, even the Serbian Protection of Animals Act PROHIBITS THIS.

According to declarations of Serbian animal rights activists, about 1.5 million dogs should have been killed in Raca until today. That comes up to 90 % of all dogs, which had been admitted there.

Another rumor is that captured dogs, which had been sterilized and chipped, were deliberately contaminated and then again abandoned to infect as many as possible stray dogs.

The bottom line.
Serbia has also a well worked out Protection of Animals Act, which is ignored consequently.
Instead of that, the authorities forbear that commercial organizations are assigned to "care about the problem with the strays". This means brutal methods for capturing, mistreatment and killing.
There is no reasonable prophylaxis, even there exists a law for it.
Cognizant politicians and authorities ignore their own laws and the suffering of thousands of dogs and cats.

This has to be changed:
1. The existing Protection of Animals Act finally has to be implemented practically: The law itself is well worked out, but no one takes it seriously, no politicians, no cognizant mayors and naturally not the inhabitants of Serbia.
2. The population has to be illuminated and sensitized that they learn to deal with animals in a more reasonable way. That means that they let chip and sterilize them. There is only one way to reduce the number of Serbian stray dogs long-term: vaccination, castration and identification of pets.
3. Instead of spending so much money for illegal dog-catchers and killing camps, they should spend the money for state-aided castration programs.
4. The thought of animal protection should already got across to the students at school, that the future generation awake to their Christian responsibility to our fellow creatures.
5. Killings have to be abrogated without the ifs and buts. The infrastructure to the public animal shelters had to be guaranteed. The same with species-appropriate keeping. The mistreatment and abandoning of dogs has to be prosecuted criminally.