Your trusted source

The authorities in Azerbaijan have set on a real “Hitlerian genocide” intending to clean the city from stray animals preparing for the European Games in Baku in summer. Moreover, special ovens have been created where the corpses of stray dogs are burnt after being brutally shot in public, Azerbaijani information site Virtualaz.org reports.

According to the article, despite the fact that the Azerbaijani government yearly issues millions of dollars for more or less civilized struggle against stray animals, they get more. The number of the cases of rabid animals’ attacks on people grows. 

“They stroll around the city in the daytime with weapons in their hands and brutally shoot at the dogs at every corner in front of the eyes of the people. They even dare threaten the citizens who oppose that disorder, warning them not to get in their way,” the site resents reminding that Azerbaijan joined the European Convention to Protect Animals in May 2007. 

Mansura Rasulzade, the head of the Azerbaijani NGO “Alliance to protect the fauna,” finds that that sort of international event should not be allowed to be hosted in “a country that killed 79 thousand dogs.” “Well, this means that the country is in quarantine, and there is a real threat of epidemics,” the Azerbaijani expert warns.

In its turn, the site concludes that in 2011 similar measures were taken to liquidate thousands of stray dogs because of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. This did not go unnoticed by the foreign press. “The European Olympics are ahead and this means that the ‘dog corruption’ will replenish some people’s pockets,” the site writes.

Azerbaijani information site Oxu.az adds that photos of animal harassment in Baku have been spread in the social networks by the Azerbaijani users. It notes that the stray dogs are not buried after being shot in the streets of the city; they are just burnt in special ovens.