Why Save Dogs From Iran?
After immense research and interview of various Iranian rescuers and animal rights advocates, we came to understand what is going on in the country and what is behind the terrible way dogs are treated in Iran:
The horrific way in which the municipalities deal with stray dogs is evidence of the authorities’ true value for animal rights. In Iran, due to the Islamic religion, dogs are considered “unclean” pests that need to be eliminated by the cities through poisoning or shooting. The poisoning methods are very inhumane since they cause a long slow death. Sometimes, they lure the dogs by acting like they are going to feed them, then catch them and inject them with acid or other poisons, and release them to die an agonizing, painful, horrific and slow death. They are often dumped in mass graves. Sometimes the graves are dug first, dogs are dumped from the back of a truck into the open grave, shot using machine guns, and then covered. These cases are well-documented and there are many video clips of city officials caught in the act.
Municipalities also have bounty on dead dogs and private contractors make a living by killing dogs and delivering their bodies to collect the bounty. Private contractors are now practicing a systematic way of destroying street dogs, by not killing the younger dogs so that they can reproduce and sustain the market of dog bounty killing and their source of revenue.
The culture of pet-ownership in Iran is not the same as in North America and Europe. While there are some owners that truly love their pets like family members, they are few and far in between. The vast majority of dog owners keep their dogs outside, treat them with little to no love and view them as commodities to be bred, sold or traded for money. Dogs are often mis-treated, hit by hand, stones or sticks. Many suffer horrific injuries such as broken bones and blindness at the hands of these so called “humans”. Unfortunately, seeing injured dogs as a result of human abuse is a regular occurrence in Iran.
Historically in the Iranian culture, the concept of pets as family members has not existed. In fact, animals have no value other than to be used for human purposes. Many Iranians may state they do not hold this value and confess that they do believe animals are sentient beings with souls, feelings and rights. This is usual because in the Iranian culture it is very important to appear to say the appropriate thing but after observing these individuals’ behaviour around animals, it soon becomes evident that this belief is very relative and the lack of true empathy towards animals that resides in the culture still has a strong hold on society.
There is zero legislature to address animal abuse and neglect, and the government does not care about animal rights or regulating animal breeding. As a result, there is a free market for anyone to operate a puppy mill and are there a high number of pet-breeding mills where animals exist in extremely poor and inhumane conditions. In fact, many government officials are themselves involved in this business, either openly or through corrupt payoffs.
At the same time, the government considers dog ownership and any activity surrounding that un-Islamic, because in their eyes it mimics the western culture. For example, if you walk your dog in Iran you run a chance of being stopped and interrogated, and your dog will be confiscated and destroyed, or you may be told that this is the case, and in the meantime, your dog will be sold for profit by someone with ties to the city officials.
Over 40 years of theocratic oppression in Iran has had tremendous social and psychological negative impact on the population. This is a very complicated and vast discussion, but the conclusion is that in the present Iran, the society is generally very inhumane towards animals which basically leads to a disproportionately high number of animal cruelty cases.
The international economical sanctions imposed on Iran blocks any international organizations that are focused on animal rescue and animal rights. It also hinders the rescue groups within the nation who need to reach outside of Iran for support, as the support within the country is minimal and inefficient.