AMMAN — A video
circulating on social media purporting a person who has been identified as a municipal
official shooting a stray dog in Zarqa and leaving it to bleed to death has
stirred anger on social media.
اضافة اعلان
The video opens
with an earlier clip of a toddler seen approaching the dog, who then harmlessly
backs away. The second part shows the official gaining the dog’s trust before
proceeding to shoot it in front of a young child.
Social media
users were enraged because they deemed that the dog was posing no threat,
arguing that that makes shooting the animal unjustifiable. Some worried that
having the child witness the incident was perpetuating the mistreatment of
stray animals in
Jordan.
Head of Zarqa
Municipality’s local committee, Firas Faour, told local media outlets that the
municipality has been able to identify and terminate the services of the local
official responsible for the shooting, in addition to seizing the weapon used
and launching an investigation into the incident.
Some Facebook
users objected to the decision, saying that the official should not be held
responsible for what they presumed were orders issued from above. “Why should
the government employee pay the price? He did not carry this out of his own
accord but must have had instructions from his superiors… Others should be held
accountable,” wrote one user.
Zarqa
Municipality’s media spokesperson Yanal Maani told Jordan News that the
decision to shoot the dog was “poor behavior” on the part of the perpetrator,
but that the weapon used belonged to the municipality's stray dog department.
“In addition to
launching an official investigation, Dr Firas Faour has also temporarily halted
operations of the stray dog department in order to coordinate with animal
welfare organizations and find appropriate solutions for such incidents moving
forward,” he said.
Alaa Jarrar, who
runs the animal shelter Al-Rahmeh, told Jordan News that the dog in the video was
popular among children in the neighborhood and always exhibited friendly and
playful behavior, to the extent that they gave him a name: Arnoon.
The case of
Arnoon is by no means an anomaly, but has garnered public attention because it
happened to be captured on video, she said, explaining that this is a practice
that continues to be rampant in other parts of the country.
Alaa believes
that animal abuse in Jordan is culturally rooted. “If the municipality doesn’t
kill dogs, then civilians do,” she said. She explained that animal abuse is
punishable by a fine of JD5-JD10, but that this is a mechanism that is rarely
enforced.
“Some people in
Jordan say that they kill dogs because they harm their children… but they don’t
think about how their children harm dogs,” she added.
Alaa told Jordan
News that the lack of an umbrella organization uniting Jordanian animal
shelters makes it difficult to effect change or push for legislation to be
drafted, as each shelter operates individually.
Tabanni, another
Jordan-based animal shelter, reposted the video with their own caption,
explaining that Jordan is a signatory to several international agreements that
deems killing animals illegal and also receives international donations for the
purposes of neutering and spaying stray animals.
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