Kurdish Writer Exposes the Problem of Abandoned Dogs in Kurdistan

Always good to see those in other countries speaking up as well. A little hard to follow the grammar, but you’ll get the picture.


Article:

Kurds cry out for change: Abandoned Kurdish dogs protest!

2/17/2007
KurdishMedia.com - By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli
Hastyar Ghamgin

Part 4: Kurds cry out for change:

http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=14079


Abandoned Kurdish dogs protest!

By Hastyar Ghamgin

Translated by Dr Kamal Mirawdeli

Translated by Dr Kamal Mirawdeli, Published on www.kurdistannet.org on 14-02-2007

After importing of countless foreign dogs to Kurdistan by the sons and daughters of the 'officials' who started to feed and take care of them in the best way, the local Kurdish dogs had a meeting and made a statement strongly protesting against this position of the officials and condemned their trampling upon the animal rights of Kurdistan animals.

The statement which carries the signatures of a large number of starved abandoned dogs calls upon the Kurdish officials to ban the flood of importation of foreign dogs which is pursued by many officials and other rich families.

These poor dogs state: We are a number of lonely abandoned stray dogs on roads and plains of Kurdistan, we are entitled to demand our rights and ask for basic animal rights.'' The dogs strongly condemn the incident of the death of Mino although Mino was a foreign dog.

This life is really a joke. No one pays attention to the plight of those poor dogs of Kurdistan many of which are attacked and hurt by naughty children. They are not allowed to pass a day in rest while one day food of the [foreign] dogs of some officials equals the wages of ten Kurdish children.
But what difference is there between us barking journalists and the dogs that with all their strength call for their rights like all the other animals who enjoy these rights.

But not only have they not been given these rights, they are also not allowed to live normally as animals.
I ask: what is the difference between an article that I as a journalist write and raise the issues of lack of electricity, lack of services, homelessness, injustice, in short, I write for the right to live, and the howl of stray dogs all the night?

Perhaps some readers say: how do you put yourself in the rank of dogs that God has created as an animal. Why not? Don't you remember an official said: the journalists bark at the government of the region like stray dogs?

I do not say that the regional government should treat me as a dog but I say let me at least live like those dogs that lack nothing and lead a happy life. The life of a foreign dog compared with the life of a journalist like me is worlds apart. Then which words of regional government shall I cherish?

I ask your conscience: Which Kurdish children even in their dreams are as well fed and spoiled as these dogs?

I heard that Miss Layla Fariqi has been given large plots of land on which she will build farms for breeding dogs and cats. I beg this lady not to forget the abandoned dogs in our won streets. We human beings have for long been living in comfort and pleasure. It is time these poor dogs did.

Dr Kamal Mirawdeli is a regular KurdishMedia.com contributor and one of the internationally known Kurdish writers. Dr Mirawdali was born in southern Kurdistan, studied in Baghdad and the UK. He lives in diaspora, London.