The killing fields of Beykoz!!!

What you will read below is an open letter from Ms. Yasemin Baban, the guardian angel of Beykoz’s stray animals, to Ihsan Oksuz, the head of the team that seized the management of the Beykoz shelter.

“It is pouring rain today. My heart and mind are on the puppies you dumped in the forests, the ones you murdered, the ones you threw up in the forests right after neutering them, the ones which are emaciated and still have their surgical bandages on their bodies.

As you continue to grow fat inside your nice and warm home, we are feeding the dogs you left out to starve, and try to heal the ones you left sick. We spend all our resources on keeping these dogs alive, instead of trying to get you convicted in court.  

We decided that it is onto God now to punish you. Torturing the creatures God created is not like extortion and illegal construction work, it has a much heavier punishment. The ones you love may die hungry, thirsty and sick. I want you to know that I pray to my God everyday for him to punish you as you deserve and that justice be done.

Of course, you could have wanted to overtake the administration of the shelter which was seemingly registered to the municipality. You could have, however, done this in a civilized manner like was the case at Sariyer a few years ago. At the time, they had given a notice to the volunteers to evacuate the shelter, no dogs were harmed. But someone like you who says “you took over the shelter with a coup” cannot undertake anything in a civilized manner.

In this way, you have seized all our assets. Assets which under the law should have been provided by the municipality yet were provided by our association. A court had already decided that all these belonged to us.

In fact, other directors could have done what you did. However, they didn’t, despite all the pressure from the mayor. Because they knew what kind of sacrifices we were personally making.

The fact that you paid a visit to the home of a resident in Riva who made a statement to the press upon the poisioning of his dog and threatened him attests to your ugly style.

Again, emanating from your ugly style, you think that all donations are administered in the “Deniz Feneri” donations scandal style. You mistook us, you thought we were the same as you and you insulted us.

For the last 4 years, the neutering and care of Beykoz’s stray animals, including rabis vaccinations, have been all paid for by our association. At a time when we were neutering Beykoz dogs at no cost to the municipality, and at a time when all Beykoz residents were complaining to the municipality’s white desk about stray dogs, the municipality never got to the task of catching dogs. (I have copies of the mails I sent to the mayor on this issue in my sent mailbox, I can make them public at any time).  

You were complaining to me that the Beykoz municipality had no financial resources at all. Have things changed when you found out that you could make money out of the neutering business? How come is that now your dog catching teams are trying to catch dogs, including elderly and already neutered dogs? Did you expect that neutering would make you money? How has it been possible for you to have the financial resources now to pay for all these after years of complaining?

I know that you will not be able to answer these question, just like you haven’t been able to answer our previous questions. To this day, both you and the mayor have avoided our calls to clarify all these questions before the press. Unfortunately, you have kept issuing lies and insults instead of facing us like bold men.

Don’t worry, everybody will eventually pay back…

I wish you a happy eid.

Yasemin Baban

P.S. I am also forwarding this letter to the web site Beykozkillers so that everybody can read it.