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Content of this document:
Part I. Introduction.
Part II. Manifesto.
Part III. Appeal to UNO Governing Bodies.
Part IV. Human rights violation in Russia in connection with inaction of the government in resolving the problem of homeless animals.
Part V. High numbers of homeless animals and major international events.
Part I.
Introduction.
The Autonomous non-profit organization "The Guardianship Charitable Society of Homeless Animals" represented by its Director Yevgeny Ilyinsky, Deputy Director Svetlana Ilyinskaya, supported by thousands upon thousands of people with whom our organization cooperates and who take care of pets (cats and dogs that lost their masters and lead wretched lives on the streets) in Russia and its capital city of Moscow,
- reminding that the level of protection of animals in any country of the world is indicative of nation's being civilized and of its morality ("One can judge nation's grandeur and moral progress by the way animals are treated" - Mohandas Ghandi),
- being convinced that the best protection for homeless animals is the acquisition by each animal of its master with clearly defined rights and duties in respect of that animal (as the best alternative to lifelong shelters for animals or their free existence on the streets),
- advancing the principle "protection of animals through social security of people taking care of animals", as the allocation of financial resources to people for keeping stray animals, on the one hand, in large measure solves the problem of employment and social security of numerous enthusiasts who protect animals and attracts new money-motivated people , and, on the other hand, enables each homeless animal to acquire an individual master and a cosy home,
- considering that the above principle constitutes: (1) the most effective and, sometimes, the only method of protecting homeless pets and raise he level of public morality in countries at an advance stage of economic development that have sufficient financial resources to develop social programs of assisting the needy strata of population, but for various reasons the legal and economic mechanisms aimed at protecting animals and realizing humane attitude toward animals in society are either unavailable or at an embryo stage,
(2) a new step in social development for international community and most advanced civilized countries, enabling many people to put to use their manifestations of their highest universal duty, i.e. care of the most needy living creatures,
- being aware that most enthusiasts who take care of animals in Russia are women, largely indigent, many of whom are elderly or disabled, because of the catastrophic situation with stray dogs and cats, saving them from death, pick them up by the dozen and keep them in their small flats for the rest of their lives with their pensions; as a result, these guardians lose their health, their living conditions deteriorate, they get increasingly poor, and in most cases lose their right to development, right to rest, right to access to medical service, an opportunity to have a family, children, which indicates that thousands of flats and private houses in Russia converted to congested shelters are harmful to animals themselves kept in such shelters, to the neighbors living beside such shelters and to environment,
- considering also that at present, as a result of thousands of stray dogs roaming the streets of Moscow unattended, the rights of Muscovites to health protection and favorable environment of life, rest and upbringing of children are violated: in Moscow alone, every year they register dozens of thousands of people attacked by dogs, there have been even lethal cases, the authorities regard these cases as manifestations of elements and refuse to assume any responsibility, including the payment of damages to those effected; official data on disturbed biodiversity of woods and parks are available as stray dogs kill wild fauna: for this reason, the keeping of homeless dogs withdrawn from city streets should be regarded as an effective means of protecting human health, environment and natural biodiversity,
- stating the fact that all attempts of community to have some kind of constructive dialog with representatives of executive and legislative authorities on the ways of settling the problem of homeless animals run against indifference and lack of political will even to discuss this range of issues,
- being confident that while touching upon specific ways of dealing with a number of problems: unpaid employment and protection of the rights of the elderly, aged, women and disabled, and of the reasons underlying loss by them of proper dwelling and their impoverishment; protection of the health of individuals and creation of favorable conditions for life, rest and upbringing of children; environmental protection and protection of biodiversity; protection of animals and of humane attitude toward them; improvement of legal and economic mechanisms and enhancing the role of public in the management of towns; modification of irrational production (reproduction) units existing in society, the materials prepared by us and now being submitted to UN authorities are of interest and, one way or another, are being dealt with in numerous areas of UN activity in the context of social and stable development programs, such as: the Vienna (1982) and Madrid (2002 ) International Plans of Action on the Problems of Ageing; The Long-Term Strategy of Implementing the World Program of Action for the Disabled (1994); the Peking Declaration (1995) and the Platform of Action (1995) and Further Measures and Initiatives towards Implementing the Peking Declaration and Platform of Action (2000) ; the Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) and the XXIst Century Agenda (1992); the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements (1996) and the Habitat Agenda (1996); the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development (1995) and Program of Action (1995) ; the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (1993) ; the Convention on Access to Information, Participation of Community in the Decision-making Process and on Access to Administration of Justice in Environmental Matters (1998), and others,
- pointing out that the best proof of the urgency of issues raised by us is Clause 46 of the Program of Action passed by the World Summit Meeting in the Interests of Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995), which says "A fair amount of productive work of great social importance, e.g. environmental protection, is not paid. The bulk of this work worldwide is done by women, who, at times, the double burden of paid and unpaid work. Efforts must be made to ensure the recognition of social and economic significance and value of unpaid work, facilitate combination of such work with waged labor on the basis of using a flexible work schedule, encouragement of voluntary social work as well as broadening the productive labor concept itself, and make provisions for social recognition of such work by elaborating, inter alia, methods of quantifying its value for likely reflection in the accounts that may be drawn up separately from the basic national accounts but should comply with them.",
we are pleased to submit herewith to the UN governing bodies materials prepared by us, containing the conceptual foundations of the range of social problems under discussion, along with certain proposals regarding solution of these problems.
Part II.
Manifesto
in defense of the rights of people who undertook to take care of homeless domestic animals.
The aims of the Manifesto:
homeless domestic animals - dogs and cats that found themselves or live permanently on the streets and that for various reasons either lost their master or never had one;
care of homeless domestic animals: out of pity towards these animals bringing homeless domestic animals into one's home or flat to take care of and provide life support;
On the one hand, in the context of equal rights and moral-and-ethical values of mankind, the infringement upon the rights of people who undertook to take care of homeless domestic animals, is manifest as follows. If a person takes care of homeless children, aged, incapable or disabled, such care is already regarded expedient, socially useful work, is encouraged economically and is subject to protection by national and international rules. However, a person often, driven by highly-humane inducements rightly (!) takes care of homeless distressed living creatures - domestic animals that became street-dwellers exactly because they are in dire need of such care. Some place value on care of indigent people as creatures that are in need of help, while others do likewise in respect of homeless animals. If the right to take care of such animals is ignored, equal rights of individuals to have their own personal moral-and ethical criteria and values are infringed. The substance of underlying motives of such care is absolutely devoid of personal gain, and this substance is serving the universal human duty to help living creatures that are desperately in need of such help. These people realize that hapless domestic animals are just as unhappy as people in need of help.
On the other hand, in the context of categories of the law of master and servant, care of indigent domestic animals constitutes an equitable, socially useful occupation, and is to be paid accordingly. This holds good especially of countries, where this kind of occupation is a pressing social need of society and fills a gap in the wok of state services and departments and where owing to this very occupation numerous rights of individuals are exercised.
In Russia, for example, the huge numbers of hapless domestic animals have grown to be an acute social problem to the entire society that touches upon the issues of health, well-being, living conditions, work and rest, ecology and other vitally important interests of a great many people, especially in large cities. This notwithstanding, alongside the abrupt increase of the volume of commercial breeding of domestic animals and flourishing zoo-business industry, the proper state regulation of mechanisms of adjusting supply and demand for domestic animals is non-existent, which accounts for the enormous number of unclaimed dogs and cats on city streets.
It is the existing irrational structures of domestic animals reproduction and consumption that have led to catastrophic increase of the numbers of hapless dogs and cats in many cities across Russia, including Moscow, which has become the reason for deteriorating health and living conditions, loss of proper dwelling, impoverishment and loss of gainful employment for many people, most of whom are elderly women, disabled who spare no time, efforts, strength and savings for the rescue of indigent domestic animals. To save the animals, these people pick them up and take them home to their flats, without receiving a penny for this from the state. Thus, they clear the streets, sacrificing their own living conditions, whereby others are thus able to exercise their rights to favorable environment.
In view of the aforesaid, we appeal to the entire progress-minded world community, above all, to the UNO governing bodies and the governments of counties, members o the UNO as well as to all-non-governmental organizations throughout the world to join forces, formulate and adopt at an international level the following stands:
1. pronounce care of hapless domestic animals an expedient, socially useful, equitable occupation to be financed from the budget of the states;
2. formulate and proclaim legal principles of activity of taking care of indigent domestic animals, whereby a person engaging in such activity would be entitled to protect the animals of which he stands guardian and, at the same time, would perform the appropriate duties to prevent any harm that may be caused by those animals to the surrounding people, their property and to environment.
The Autonomous non-profit organization "The Guardianship Charitable Society of Homeless Animals"
Moscow, July 19, 2004
Part III.
Appeal to UNO Governing Bodies.
Realizing, as exemplified by Russia, that the overwhelming majority of people who undertake to take care of abandoned domestic animals are women, mostly needy, aged and disabled as most vulnerable and feeling the sufferings and pain of hapless living creatures and the need of such animals for care and life support, it should be noted that these categories of individuals in some countries are still being discriminated against and for this reason their petitions to the local and national authorities with complaints regarding their own social protection are usually ignored.
However, by and large, legislation in quite a few countries, in particular the Russian and international rules, have made spectacular headway as far as protection of people's rights to a free choice of occupation is concerned.
In our view, the current situation in Russia, in connection with social vulnerability of the enormous number of women taking care of indigent domestic animals, is a vivid indication that the time has come for next step to be made towards justice and equality of people's rights and for providing, at top international level, at least minimum social protection of the noble people who choose as their occupation care of hapless domestic animals, thus doing socially-useful work and, considering the weight of such work, sacrifice many a social boon of other occupations.
At the same time, some countries are already facing or may be faced with similar problems of a huge number of indigent domestic animals and of there being part of the population, volunteering to take care of such animals and willing to do this work on an equitable legitimate paid basis, along with other forms and types of employment.
Universal recognition of individuals' care of hapless animals as an occupation, equitable and paid by the state, constitutes a new effective step of the third millennium as it enables us to make a qualitative advance in the following socially-significant areas:
(à) provision of gainful employment and assistance to a great number of women, aged and disabled to realize their interests, experience and creative potential;
(b) solution of the following problems in a most optimum and morally-acceptable manner:
- protection and rescue of hapless domestic animals by replacing inhumane or less humane concepts of handling indigent domestic animals with alternative ones (destroying them or giving them soporific drugs, sterilizing, with subsequent return to former habitats, setting up lifelong shelters for the animals, etc.);
- protection of individuals' rights to favorable living conditions, favorable conditions for health, rest and upbringing of children;
- protection of environmental biodiversity;
(c) realizing the principle "protection of animals through social protection of man", in which case money paid to a person for taking care of animals protects both the individual and the animals: this is a double use and also more reliable and best protection for the animals that acquire a master-guardian. To people and the animals, this is better than financing services dealing with animals only: there, the animals are sterilized, placed in shelters or are given soporific drugs until they die.
Therefore, we consider it our duty to request the UNO governing bodies to do the following:
1. Put forward the above Manifesto for discussion at a meeting of an appropriate committee of the UNO Economic and Social Council;
2. Set up a working group, a permanent subcommittee and an advisory board at the UNO Economic and Social Council to formulate and prepare for adoption UN documents on these issues as well as to render consultative assistance to Russia and other countries in solving social problems stemming from huge numbers of hapless domestic animals.
3. Establish, under the aegis of the UNO Economic and Social Council, an international purpose-oriented fund to render assistance to the governments of the countries in transition that have a political will to take effective humane measures towards reducing the number of indigent domestic animals. Such assistance is to be given, provided the governments of these countries take the aforesaid measures.
4. Facilitate dissemination of information worldwide about the activity of taking care of hapless domestic animals as a form of realizing creative potential and manifestation of highly-humane convictions of individuals - elderly, women and disabled who show concern for hapless domestic animals and to raise their social status, proclaim the nearest "unassigned" year "the year of a person showing concern for indigent animals ".
Part IV.
Human rights violation in Russia in connection with inaction of the government in resolving the problem of homeless animals.
In many towns of Russia, unregulated, unpaid hard work of elderly people, women and the disabled (frequently, beyond their strength) is used. Because there are absolutely no services, ensuring the assistance, rescue, life support, sheltering and sterilization of an enormous number of stray domestic animals (cats and dogs) that for various reasons lost their masters and found themselves on the streets, all this work has to be performed by city dwellers most of them represented by the aforesaid categories of individuals.
In the conditions of a megapolis, pets that lost their masters and became homeless stand no chance of surviving and are doomed to death. Normal people, capable of feeling compassion for others, are unable, physically, to ignore the doomed animals.
Every day, we receive lots of reports of cruel treatment of stray animals. Deliberate mass destruction of homeless dogs and cats in the City of Moscow is carried out largely by poisoning with toxins. For the last few years, homeless cats have been destroyed by walling them up live in the basement floors of buildings, where the animals find shelter from cold. Deprived of shelter, the cats also die of severe cold or, most often, from being attacked by dogs. Just imagine that this agonizing death of animals takes place before the very eyes of people who take care of the pets and who, as a result, get nervous shocks that sometimes lead to infarcts or insultuses.
Realizing that they have nowhere or nobody to ask for real assistance animals for stray animals, people take the animals home. And, in most cases, people are unable and do not want to keep such animals as their pets either due to their circumstances, or living conditions, or poor health. Therefore, when picking up the pets, people make inconceivable sacrifices, losing both health, decent living conditions, proper dwelling, becoming poverty-stricken, since all their means are used for keeping the animals, and the opportunity to have a family and children, to have the right for a free choice of a paid occupation, the right for access to health services (a person cannot be hospitalized as there is no one nearby to take care of the pets). Some are even unable to call an ambulance for fear of showing the doctor their living conditions.
To say that the state does not recognize or does not protect this socially useful occupation and participation of these people in the development of society is as good as to say nothing: in fact, the state equates these people with the most backward and degraded individuals (alcoholics, persons with no particular place of residence, marginal elements, etc.), often threatening to destroy the animals and evict people from their only apartments. For example, it is quite likely that legislation will be adopted in Moscow, whereby Muscovites will be evicted from their flats if they fail to pay for public utilities without delay, which jeopardizes the position of people who spend all their money to save homeless animals. In our view, people suffer and are victimized by society for their highly humane convictions that society must save the needy and doomed pets.
These people render veterinary aid on their own, picking up animals on the streets for sterilization in order to prevent birth of puppies and kittens doomed to die. As they do so, they themselves fall into a risk group for rabies, other infectious diseases and animal bites. However, they cannot expect to be offered high-risk insurance against being traumatized or contracting diseases as a result of such dangerous and hard work. Keeping a few pets picked up on the street is hard work, because the animals often get sick. There are no veterinary clinics in Moscow to provide services for stray or picked-up animals even at a discounted rate for the indigent, let alone free of charge. And prices for veterinary services are raised out of proportion despite the inexcusably low level of veterinary services in many veterinary clinics. For example, an operation on an injured animal costs several times the size of pension .
People become guardians of homeless animals ignoring the fact that those living next door may be absolutely indifferent to the fate of poor animals, getting no assistance from anybody, or, on the contrary, themselves being objects of permanent insults, humiliation, threat of harsh treatment and violence (there have been facts of physical punishment of guardians of stray pets).
A few years back, absolutely for no reason and without any scientific justification, the Government of Moscow embarked on a policy whereby animals that lost their masters and found themselves on the street began to be regarded not as animals in distress and in need of being rescued, but as an integral part of urban environment with a positive impact on urban ecology. As a result, the authorities actually gave up the problem of stray animals, having adopted a program that does not reduce the number of homeless pets, but only maintains a particular strength of these animals in distress on the streets.
These measures add up to sterilization of a very small part of stray animals (in our estimation, 1-2%, maximum), with return of the animals to their former habitats. At the same time, the current scientific Russian and forine surveys indicate that to prevent regeneration of the population of homeless animals at least 80% of stray cats and dogs must be either to one-time withdrawal from the environment or to sterilization. While Moscow authorities went on with their program, no services were set up to monitor the efficiency of such policy, including animals count and estimation of an adequate level of financing to achieve the desired effect.
As a result of this policy, the number of stray animals has increased dozens upon dozens of times, and, in our estimation, is now equal to several hundred thousand in Moscow, whereas the workload for people saving the lives of these animals has become absolutely unbearable.
Russia has no laws restricting the keeping of pets. There are no awareness campaigns under way making it clear to people that pets' unwanted posterity is inadmissible. Veterinary and, in particular, sterilization of animals is at a low level. As a result, we are faced with a situation, where some people are engaged in uncontrolled and haphazard production of animals nobody wants to see alive or care about, while others are trying to save those animals with what is left of their strength.
On the markets and in places, where pets are on sale, the sellers literally throw away unsold kittens and puppies by hundreds and thousands as if they were rotten vegetables disposed of into a garbage can.
Time and again, thousands of Muscovites applied to various instances, authorities and addressed Moscow Mayor Yu.M.Luzhkov personally, complaining of cruel treatment of homeless animals and requesting to take action to help those animals. The results has either been nil, or an outright refusal to help, or pointless formal replies from the urban fauna division of the Department for Housing and Communal Services, commenting on "the humane policy of sterilization of stray animals in the city" being conducted in Moscow. And nobody has ever taken any specific action.
At the same time, through the Russian mass media the chiefs of Moscow urban fauna division carry out a misinformation campaign on a regular basis about the allegedly positive success of the sterilization program and about the existence of normally functioning shelters for animals in Moscow.
The damage resulting from the sky-rocketing number of stray animals in Moscow alone runs into dozens of million Rubles of budgetary allocations spent for the treatment of those bitten by animals. Besides, approximately Rbls. 35 million is assigned from Moscow budget every year for handling homeless animals, and it is impossible to control the actual spending of these resources. As for moral harm inflicted on society, it does not yield itself to any kind of valuation whatsoever, for a great number of people in this country became disabled and a few persons died after being attacked by stray dogs. As was already pointed out, at present, even to suspend the growing number of homeless animals, no less than 80% of stray dogs and cats will have to be sterilized in Moscow, which, according to our estimates will call for close to 1 billion Rubles. The setting up in Moscow of several municipal shelters to accommodate 100,000 homeless animals is all the more a utopia.
In the present circumstances, when the Government of Moscow has begun to realize that the entire situation with animals must be changed decisively and that, on the other hand, solution of the problem of reducing so high numbers of animals by humane methods (without destroying the pets) will require very heavy capital investment, it is likely that a cheap and quick solution will be made (possibly, privately) to destroy these animals. According to some sources, such destruction of stray dogs in Moscow has begun already and is gaining momentum.
In this connection, we declare that officials who made economic decisions earlier that resulted in the current uncontrolled growth of the number of homeless animals must be penalized, and Moscow Government should be brought to account, but not the individuals who already have suffered enough from having to rescue the animals, because vital interests of those people will be doubly violated, should the pets they protect be mercilessly destroyed.
In any case, the efforts to reduce the numbers of homeless animals should be based on preventing the appearance of stray animals on the streets and not on the struggle with the consequences alone. If we appraise this problem without bias, it should be admitted that the only fundamental measures capable of resolving the problem of homeless animals, based on scientific research, without violating the rights of individuals, and humane toward the animals, include:
1. Imposing a restriction for pet masters on breeding the dogs and cats, which will make it possible to establish proper state control of Russia's existing irrational organizations in charge of reproduction and consumption to eliminate overproduction in the area of pet breeding, purchase and sale so as to eliminate overproduction and devaluation of cats and dogs and thereby stop the influx of surplus unwanted puppies, kittens and adult animals onto the streets of towns;
2. Paying allowances out of budgetary resources to individuals for keeping picked-up stray animals; besides adopting these two major mechanisms, an integrated program should be carried out to include registration and recording of all homeless and owner-assigned dogs and cats, imposing a tax or insurance on purchased cats and dogs, insurance being provided for the risk of pet's master being lost, development of a system for marking all cats and dogs to facilitate their identification, etc.
Our concept of paying allowances to individuals for keeping he picked-up stray animals has a number of advantages over methods of handling homeless pets like setting up lifelong shelters for them or sterilization with subsequent return to former habitats.
(a) From the standpoint of efficiency of invested budgetary resources: according to our concept, budgetary resources are not invested in abstract animals, hypothetical shelters or little-felt sterilization, but are paid out as public assistance to omens, pensioners, the disabled and needy: it is this segment of population that in the overwhelming majority of the cases at present carries out the entire work with stray animals free of charge, having virtually no personal interest, but doing the work for the sake of the state, therefore, when an allowance is paid to them, the following rights are being exercised: the rights of the elderly, women, the disabled to a free choice of a paid occupation; the principle of "equal remuneration for equal labor"; the right to favorable environment; the principle of "adequate dwelling for all".
As was already pointed out, stray animals constitute a grave hazard to the health of individuals. Besides, according to official responses to our queries from nature-conservation, ecological and sanitary-and-epidemiological organizations, as a result of adoption in Moscow of the concept of sterilization of stray animals, with their subsequent existence in 'live-where-they can' mode, homeless dogs have actually become killers of wild animals including those listed in the Red Data Book in Moscow woods and parks (which is in conflict with preservation of wildlife diversity and is incompatible with the fundamental principles of environmental protection). In residential areas, homeless dogs kill stray cats, which causes great sufferings to their guardians. Therefore, in our view, investment in this concept is as good as supporting the aforesaid violations of laws financed from the budget.
On the contrary, our concept of paying allowances to guardians of homeless pets, who keep such pets after they are withdrawn from the streets, should, in addition, be regarded as an effective way of protecting human health, environment and natural biodiversity.
(b) As far as the size of budgetary allocations is concerned: to set up municipal shelters for hundreds of thousands of stray animals or carry out a one-time sterilization of 80% of this population, which is impossible to do as the state does not have the appropriate accounts to attend to homeless animals. However, if these volumes of financial resources are regarded as hardship payments to people (allowances or wages), then financial flows here become by orders of magnitude greater, meaning that paying a minimum allowance to one hundred thousand Muscovite guardians (elderly, women, disabled) who have adopted a stray pet and keep it at home sounds quite realistic.
(c) From the standpoint of monitoring purpose-oriented spending of allocated budgetary resources: it is virtually impossible to establish how much of the resources allocated is actually used for sterilizing the animals or how much reaches the animals at a municipal shelter, and this will forever remain a secret and a matter of conscience of the appropriate officials. For example, according to our data, municipal shelters for animals use mostly charity-donated animal feeds that are either rejected or whose term has expired. Often, such feeds are not recorded anywhere. This enables the management of animal shelters to appropriate budgetary resources allocated for feeding the animals. In our case, when an allowance is paid for keeping an animal, it is easy to control the allocated budgetary resources. Another important consideration is that at municipal shelters nobody is interested in extending the life and normal health condition of each animal, rather, the reverse is true: a shelter is more concerned about animals turnover, since it may receive some "charity" funds the very moment next animal is admitted at the shelter. Naturally, there seems to be no alternative to loss of animals for a shelter crammed to capacity to create turnover of its cats and dogs and thus produce "vacancies" for new animals. Therefore, a shelter may, to put it mildly, "save" on the foods and conditions of animals upkeep, without detriment to itself. In our concept, however, a person receiving the allowance is vitally concerned to see the animal entrusted to him in a sound condition as this condition determines whether or not he will be paid for the animal next month. Besides, the prime cost of maintaining the same dog at a shelter is much higher: it comprises, besides the wages of personnel, payment for the ground (!), premises, service lines as well as the cost of permanent medical treatment of animals, because a large shelter is always a disease-breeder. It is equally important to consider that he setting up a large shelter will always be objected by city authorities and some part of the local population: to city fathers, a shelter means unprofitable distribution of super-costly ground area, and to local population - an extra source of alarm and environmental pollution, therefore people will keep insisting on closing down the shelter.
(d) From the standpoint of welfare of homeless animals, sterilization with subsequent return to former habitats or lifelong maintenance at the existing shelters does not give ample chance of long life of a stray animal. And this we regard as a crucial factor for advancing our concept, where, albeit for charge, an animal does acquire a master and home, as a pet should.
Please, consider our address, above all, in the context of our constructive proposals aimed at resolving the aforesaid problem.
Nevertheless, our organization keeps receiving petitions with complaints from individuals acting as homeless animal guardians who have suffered as a result of inaction of authorities in handling the problem of stray animals. We intend to submit these petitions to Russian instances, the appropriate committees of the United Nations Organization and of the International Labor Organization as well as to public at large.
Part V.
High numbers of homeless animals and major international events.
It should be noted separately that uncontrolled habitation of 100,000 indigent dogs roaming the streets of Moscow is, for many reason, incompatible with the holding of major international events, including the 2012 Olympic Games that Moscow is striving to host. Unless an effective program of saving and reducing the numbers of homeless animals is adopted now, then, in case Moscow wins the competition for holding the 2012 Olympics, the entire throng of stray animals will have to be destroyed. (According to newspaper reports, such has been the lot of homeless animals on the eve of the Olympics in Athens this year. Despite the fact that the numbers of stray animals in Athens is dozens of times as low compared with Moscow, the auhorities were unable to find a humane means of solving this problem.) However, the budgetary resources of the state no doubt make it possible to decide the fate of stray animals in a humane and civilized manner. Whereas the destruction of homeless animals will infringe the rights of many people showing concern for these animals, an of Russia's zoo-protection organizations since their charters contain clauses on animal-protection activity.
The purpose and motto of the Olympic movement is, among other things, raising the level of ethical and moral values of the world community. Therefore, in our opinion, the holding of the Olympic Games is incompatible with destruction of stray dogs and cats and with allied infringement of the rights and vital interests of many individuals who devoted their whole lives to rescuing animals. In this connection, our zoo-protection organization considers it to be its duty to inform the governing bodies of the UNO and of the International Olympic Committee about the current situation with homeless animals in Moscow and in Russia so that this information could be taken into account, when choosing the venue of the 2012 Olympic Games and other major international events.
We trust your kind attention on the matter. Please notify us about your resolution to aforementioned address.
Cordially,
Director Yevgeny Ilyinsky,
Deputy Director Svetlana Ilyinskaya
The Autonomous non-profit organization "The Guardianship Charitable Society of Homeless Animals" , Moscow, July 19, 2004
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