The following are direct repeats of e mails circulating the network at present regarding the situation for animals in Turkey.

SAV have not amended any text – what you see is what was sent.

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TURKEY IS AT IT AGAIN !

http://turkeymassacre.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/lets-freeze-them-to-death/

LET’S FREEZE THEM TO DEATH!

Posted: 05 Feb 2009 10:08 AM CST

The city of Agri in eastern Turkey – one of the coldest in the entire country. And the strays here are particularly unfortunate. In warmer places, they somehow manage to survive through the winter. In Agri, they freeze to death. Like the one below that froze to death recently…   

Just before she died, she had managed to take some of her puppies away to safety. This one tough wouldn’t leave mummy. It stood by the dead body of its mother for over 2 days until Turkey’s animal rights activists became aware of the situation via journalists. This puppy has now been taken to a municipal shelter in a neighboring city.

Because there is no municipal shelter in the city of Agri itself. Turkish law requires all municipalities to set up shelters for homeless animals – most mayors, however, couldn’t care less. Neither does the mayor of Ekrem Aktas. The stray dogs of Agri are either freezing to death, or being poisoned to death.

Mr. Aktas – nothing lasts forever. You can’t avoid the law until eternity. Like it or not, you will have to eventually comply with the law and set up a shelter for stray animals in Agri. This is our question to him: JUST WHEN THE HELL WILL YOU DO IT?

If you want to ask him the same question, please send your messages to:

Mayor of Agri Ekrem Aktas: agribelediyesi62@mynet.com

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Dear Friends,

Here we go again. Now it’s the cities of Izmir and Beykoz. See the email below. Please look up the phone number for the nearest Turkish Consulates and Turkish Embassies (http://www.turkish-media.com/en/us_tr_embassies.htm)   and call them that their government’s reputation is getting worse and worse, despite the fact that Turkish people are great animal loving people.

Garo

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Dear All,

Unfortunately it is not only İzmir! I am sending you pics of the dogs I have found since 10 days all around Beykoz. Some have been poisonned, others shot down by farmers, or hunters!

As local elections are approaching Beykoz Municipality is working very hard collecting day and night dogs even the protected ones from Beykoz town and drop them in the woods (so that hunters and wood protectors kills them) or in the villages (so that farmers kills them). Recently the actual authorities have sorted that villages population of Beykoz cannot vote for local mayors and this is the reason why they dump all the dogs in these areas.

Today again I have been told of 12 dogs shot down at Ali Bahadır a village from Beykoz!

I believe it is time again to please take out your Beykoz Municipality e-mail adresses from your drawer and start protesting!

I am sure this is not only in Beykoz but all over İstanbul (and of course all over Turkey see İzmir)

But the biggest dog population is of course in İstanbul and the biggest responsible of this mass murder is the candidacy of İstanbul to 2010 Citie of Culture !

Please go on protesting İSTANBUL MAYOR KADİR TOPBAŞ he is the leader of this extermination!!

THANK YOU!

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | 1 Comment »

This campaign issue is primarily for Uk citizens, but we guess that other EU citizens can sign up also !

SAV are very pleased to give full support to Hugh and the team at “Chicken Out” – the campaign for a Free-Range future.

YOU Can sign up as a supporter to a free-range future for Uk chickens by clicking on the following link:

http://www.chickenout.tv/sign-up.html

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

Roast chicken is an iconic dish in British culture.  It probably ranks close to the top of most people’s list of favourite foods.  It may be affordable for the masses, but it is also fit for a king. 

But how many of you know about the life your fresh supermarket chickens lead before they reach your table?  That their short, intensively farmed indoor existence is managed like a factory production line, to ensure the big retailers can sell them to you for as little as £2 a bird?  Is that all the life an animal, born and raised to feed us, is worth?

Unacceptable conditions

I believe that conditions in which most chickens in the UK are reared are unacceptable.  Stocking densities are too high.  Severe leg problems – associated with rapid weight gain and restricted movement – are common.  The birds are deprived of essential stimulation and unable to express their natural behaviour.  Under these conditions, decent welfare standards – and British farmers have some of the highest in Europe – are impossible to achieve.

Reform the industry

I would like to see the industry ‘de-intensify’ by lowering stocking densities and including environmental enrichment programmes in all its chicken sheds.  Existing models for this reform include the RSPCA Freedom Foods system.  I believe that this, or similar audited systems very close to it, should be the new minimum welfare standard for indoor-reared broiler chickens.

Supermarkets and fast food outlets should adopt these higher welfare systems as their new baseline standard, and should in turn insist that all their suppliers adopt them.

I would like the supermarkets to end their poultry price wars, as they put pressure on farmers to maximise the intensity of their operations.  I also urge them to pay a fair price to farmers, for higher welfare birds, and to support them with clear labelling so that consumers can understand what they are paying for.

Above all, I would like to see more birds reared outdoors, on assured free range and organic systems.  I believe this is the natural and appropriate way for a chicken to live. 

The Chicken Out! campaign

I feel so strongly about our chickens that I’m launching a national campaign, which I’m calling Chicken Out!  Part of it will be a new TV series on Channel 4, which will help you to understand the conditions in which most table birds are reared, and to put pressure on the industry to raise its standards.  Chicken Out! is being led by River Cottage locals, especially in and around Axminster, who are boycotting intensively-reared chickens and choosing free range instead.  I need you to do the same.

Support us!

I also need you to register your support on this website.  We need thousands of signatures to convince supermarkets, farmers, government regulators and anyone else involved in this unacceptable business that they must change.

If you’d like to sign-up to show your support for our campaign, then please leave us your email address via the ‘Sign Up’ link below.  You can also tick the box if you’d like us to keep you informed about the developments.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

SIGN UP NOW:

http://www.chickenout.tv/sign-up.html

OTHER Campaign links: animal welfare supporter organisations; flyers, posters, etc:

http://www.chickenout.tv/links.html

http://www.chickenout.tv/uploads/files/avery_stickers_C2243.pdf

http://www.chickenout.tv/uploads/files/chicken_out_flyer.pdf

http://www.chickenout.tv/uploads/files/free_range_is_fairer.pdf

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

On Saturday 31 January, a friend in Ioannina (northern Greece) sent me the following email …. another shocking report of poisoning, one of many received in the past couple of weeks. At the end of the report is the mayor’s name, address etc …. PLEASE write to him, expressing your disgust, but please keep your letter as polite as you can (yes, I know, not easy….).
Vesna

URGENT:

One of the TV reports about the poisoning has been put on You Tube:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LT65qP-61kg

PLEASE leave a comment (those of you who speak Greek, write in Greek, others in English) and ask your friends to do the same …. once there are sufficient number of comments (at least 200), they will be printed out & passed on to the press AND included with a letter to the mayor…… PLEASE do this  without delay; we must pile on as much pressure as we can on the mayor….

Fax: + 30 26510 01010

email: mayor@ioannina.gr
nikos@gontas.gr

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“…On Wednesday evening, 28 January ‘09, 5 dogs were found poisoned in the central square of Ioannina. All dogs were alive when found, but only one was saved. It was no coincidence that Wednesday night was chosen – a day when the shops are closed and the town is relatively empty and the 28th was the first fine day in a month of so much rain that the attempts of even the most persistent poisoner would have been thwarted.

The Deputy Mayor didn’t waste time in publicly condemning the poisoning as a random act by an insensitive, callous citizen. Perhaps, but the following day revealed 11 more dogs poisoned at another park in the city and all over the city those who feed stray animals are reporting missing dogs. One can’t help but remember election time 2004. Two days before the leader of a major Greek political party was to address a public meeting in the central square it was the same scenario. The same local authority, the same Mayor, the same easy solution – 13 dogs poisoned in the central square of Ioannina.

There is always a reaction by a small group of citizens when animals are deliberately poisoned, but this time the reaction in Ioannina has been intense. The poisoning was covered by two local television channels, who didn’t hesitate to show dogs convulsing as they slowly died an agonising death. Two local newspapers covered the incident and printed letters in which citizens expressed their disgust. Students reacted quickly by calling a meeting to prepare posters and leaflets condemning the incident. Another open meeting will be held on Thursday 5 February at 7.30pm (Workers’ Centre, Yiosef Eligia St).

For those of us who witness poisoning all too often, it is a relief to have this support and in many cases from people who are not necessarily animal lovers, but who condemn poisoning for the violent, barbaric crime it is. However, we also know that somewhere in the Town Hall, ‘they’ are smiling to themselves, because despite all our reactions, they have achieved what they wanted to achieve.

For those of you who also want to express your disgust that these crimes continue to occur on a daily basis in Greece, please write to the Mayor of Ioannina. The culprits, public or private, are never prosecuted for poisoning, as is the case with those who abandon their animals to this fate with a clear conscience and the surety that they will never be investigated or apprehended. In similar fashion, the local authorities responsible for animal welfare in Greece ignore their responsibilities, relying on the generosity of other Europeans and unpaid volunteers to undertake the care of Greece’s hundreds and thousands of stray animals…..”

Nikolaos Gontas
Mayor of Ioannina
Town Hall
Plateai A. Papandreou 5
Ioannina 45221
Greece

Fax: + 30 26510 01010

email: mayor@ioannina.gr
nikos@gontas.gr

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SAMPLE LETTER **  SAMPLE LETTER **  SAMPLE LETTER ** 

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To

Nikolaos Gontas
Mayor of Ioannina
Town Hall
Plateai A. Papandreou 5
Ioannina 45221
Greece

Sir,

I cannot but condemn in the strongest possible terms the cowardly and cruel poisoning of these unfortunate animals in your municipality of Ioannina.

Video:  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LT65qP-61kg

This action is below contempt – especially as your Deputy Mayor was quick to condemn something he very likely knew of, maybe even had a hand in – and – as I understand this was not the first time such an incident took place on Ioannina:

Election time 2004 – Two days before the leader of a major Greek political party was to address a public meeting in the central square it was the same scenario. The same local authority, the same Mayor, the same easy solution – 13 dogs poisoned in the central square of Ioannina.

With this history in mind there really is NO NEED denying the responsibility of your office for these killings – which were intentional, planned and NOT “random acts by insensitive, callous citizens”, as seems to be the official position of your administration.

NO !!

Do not, I beg you, think that current outrage at this will pass and go away, soon to be forgotten.

You could not be more mistaken, Sir.

Greece once more has shown her true face – which is NOT one of an ancient culture and civilization, but the ugly and grotesque face of a mass killer of Innocents – every day, all over Greece !!

I have been told to write this letter in a polite manner, but having seen the video images of convulsing and dying animals in front of your very office I am indeed VERY hard pressed to do so.

I am beyond sick and tired of witnessing acts like these, and MY conscience at least does react to them in a way that is normal for someone who feels compassion for others – when you and certain of your countrymen clearly do not !

Name:  

Nationality: 

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SAMPLE LETTER **  SAMPLE LETTER **  SAMPLE LETTER ** 

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