Warning: The following article may be triggering to some as it involves the inhumane treatment of animals.
On Friday, animal rights activist Ghina Nahfawi uploaded a graphic video of a woman in Kamed El Loz, a town in West Bekaa killing a dog in broad public view.
The video shows the woman with a gun, calmly approaching the dog who was peacefully sitting in the streets. She shot him twice, in front of her children, with them laughing at the shot dog squirming in pain, and cheering, “The dog died! The dog died!”
“It is completely unacceptable and so upsetting to witness such atrocities. While the vast majority of people are struggling in a tough country, such actions only take us backward,” said Animals Lebanon in a post on Instagram.
As the NGO stated, Animal Protection and Welfare law 47/2017 makes it illegal to abuse animals in Lebanon, let alone kill them.
Animal Lebanon has taken legal action against the woman. “Judge Iyad Badran has been contacted and we are submitting an official request to the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Interior, and the Mayor of Bekaa urging them for urgent legal action against these criminal activities in broad public view”.
When confronted by activists, the woman justified herself by saying that the dog had attacked her daughter, so she had to shoot him.
However, passersby said that the dog usually does not attack anyone, and it was her daughter who had first attacked the dog.
The cruel action of the woman is unfortunately not the first in Lebanon. There have been many such killings of animals during the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered by wrong assumptions that they are causing the spread of the virus to humans.
A local media network had falsely reported back then that animals might be a cause for concern during the pandemic, which wreaked havoc on pets and strays in Lebanon.
Countering the wrong claim, 961 had prompted to publish an informative article of awareness in an attempt to stop the carnage against the innocent creatures.
The aggravating economic crisis came to add to the series of offenses against the vulnerable animals with some getting rid of their pets for not being able to afford their food and vaccination.
Despite the Animal Protection and Welfare law 47/2017, the security forces are not always taking the appropriate measures against those who abuse animals (shooting, poisoning, etc.), as animals in Lebanon are sometimes treated as property, rather than beings.
