Turkey: Stray dog tracking website accused of instigating attacks on dogs

Access to a Turkish website that shows on a map locations where stray dogs have been sighted was blocked on Monday upon reactions by people who claim that packs of stray dogs were recently located and killed through the information provided by the website.

"Havrita" reported on Twitter in a single day on 21 August, a day before its website was blocked to internet traffic, 19 new incidents of "stray dog pack formation" and "attacks on people", including information on "injuries," in 12 provinces.

The local reports also provide images of the dogs sighted. There are even posted close up images showing body parts of people who allegedly suffered injuries.

The hashtag "Havrita should be closed" has become one of the most popular trending topics on Twitter on Monday.

A "devran naz", one of the Twitter users who expressed strong reaction against the stray dog tracking application, said:

"This app be closed, it’s created for citizens to use and send a location of a dog that they have a complaint about. Then they come out and poison the stray animals. I am definitely not amazed by humanity creating such a psychopathic app for an evil agenda."

While a lawyer representing "Havrita Stray Dog Map" told reporters that it was the website's owner who shut it down, an announcement appears on the site's homepage that "the site was blocked to access in the context of an Ankara court decision on 22 August 2022."