Istanbul Bar Association Sues Against Animal Testing

Istanbul Bar Association Animal Rights Commission submitted a lawsuit to Turkey’s Council of State concerning the suspension of a regulation by Animal Testing Ethical Committee.

The aforementioned regulation includes the following article: “Everyone with or without medical training can carry out experiments on animals”.

Istanbul Bar Association Animal Rights Commission stated that this regulation is against the present Animal Welfare Law and all the universal regulations about animal rights.

It was stated in detail that Animal Testing cannot be accepted both scientifically and ethically. Scientific researches and reasons related to animal testing and alternative methods were included.

“Every year millions of animals are slain under the pretext of animal testing. This is ethically wrong. Many experiments were stopped on the grounds that animal testing is not reliable for human beings. Ever year thousands of people die due to the unreliable animal testing,” advocate Hülya Yalçın said. 

Yalçın also added that an implemented regulation in 2011 (Deneysel Ve Diğer Bilimsel Amaçlar İçin Kullanılan Hayvanların Refah Ve Korunmasına Dair Yönetmelik) paved the way for medical testing on stray and wild animals.

“It cannot be accepted to expose these animals incredible pain. I’ll give an example: They take a dog with broken bones. It is alive and conscious. But they don’t anesthetize the dog. They break the bones of the dog with iron bars without killing it and then they start to treat. A right-minded human cannot accept this. These horrible data come from individuals and our veterinarian friends. 

“Turkey is receding about Animal Rights unfortunately instead of developing it. Animal Testing is immoral, inhuman and totally unnecessary. Alternative to animal testing at least 100 methods can be used. Every year more than 100 million animals are poisoned, burnt, beaten and exposed to physical and psychological trauma. It cannot be justified to expose animals to unbearable pain, dread and loneliness and kill them.  (ÇT/BD/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.