Freightdawg
Expert Expediter
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MUST HATE DOGS
The leaders of Iran have never really liked dogs, and for years they've merely tolerated dog ownership in the country, something they consider lowly and un-Islamic. But as TIME reports, something seems to have pushed the Iranian government over the edge: Lawmakers in Tehran have proposed a bill that would outlaw keeping a pet dog, formally criminalizing a practice that has already faced periodic crackdowns in the past.
Police in Iran have a long history of arbitrarily confiscating people's dogs off the street, while state media have regaled Iranians with reports about diseases dogs can spread. But the new bill would take the country's informal fear of dogs to new heights, imposing fines of $100-$500 on dog owners while mandating that dogs are confiscated, with no clear answer about what would happen to them after that. "Considering the several thousand dogs [that are kept] in Tehran alone, the problem arises as to what is going to happen to these animals," Hooman Malekpour, a veterinarian in Tehran, recently told the BBC. In addition to warning of public health hazards that dogs supposedly present, the bill claims that dog ownership "also poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the West." And it may not even be limited to dogs - the bill's wording is vague enough to include cats, too, outlawing simply "the walking and keeping" of "impure and dangerous animals."
Of course, many Iranians own pets and are animal lovers, and the government's stance on dogs doesn't represent the country overall. Dog ownership has increased as Iran's urban middle class grew in the past 15 years, dispensing with outdated views of dogs as "najes," or unclean, TIME reports. Yet the government routinely sweeps stray dogs off the street, and now pet dogs could face the same fate if they're spotted outdoors. "Many in Tehran and other big cities find the killing of street dogs offensive and cruel," Iranian journalist Omid Memarian tells TIME. "It's like the Iranian people and officials live in two different worlds."
(Source: TIME)
MUST HATE DOGS
The leaders of Iran have never really liked dogs, and for years they've merely tolerated dog ownership in the country, something they consider lowly and un-Islamic. But as TIME reports, something seems to have pushed the Iranian government over the edge: Lawmakers in Tehran have proposed a bill that would outlaw keeping a pet dog, formally criminalizing a practice that has already faced periodic crackdowns in the past.
Police in Iran have a long history of arbitrarily confiscating people's dogs off the street, while state media have regaled Iranians with reports about diseases dogs can spread. But the new bill would take the country's informal fear of dogs to new heights, imposing fines of $100-$500 on dog owners while mandating that dogs are confiscated, with no clear answer about what would happen to them after that. "Considering the several thousand dogs [that are kept] in Tehran alone, the problem arises as to what is going to happen to these animals," Hooman Malekpour, a veterinarian in Tehran, recently told the BBC. In addition to warning of public health hazards that dogs supposedly present, the bill claims that dog ownership "also poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the West." And it may not even be limited to dogs - the bill's wording is vague enough to include cats, too, outlawing simply "the walking and keeping" of "impure and dangerous animals."
Of course, many Iranians own pets and are animal lovers, and the government's stance on dogs doesn't represent the country overall. Dog ownership has increased as Iran's urban middle class grew in the past 15 years, dispensing with outdated views of dogs as "najes," or unclean, TIME reports. Yet the government routinely sweeps stray dogs off the street, and now pet dogs could face the same fate if they're spotted outdoors. "Many in Tehran and other big cities find the killing of street dogs offensive and cruel," Iranian journalist Omid Memarian tells TIME. "It's like the Iranian people and officials live in two different worlds."
(Source: TIME)
