Mahmoud Siddiq - Cairo

The crisis caused by the statement issued by the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture to export 2400 cats and two thousand dogs to Asian countries that eat the meat of these animals is a matter of popular, media and legal displeasure. The chaos and confusion in the statements of the ministry officials on the statements of the clerics have been reflected in a lackluster, hesitant and even contradictory view.

Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture declined to comment on the massive waves of animal exportation. After confirming for several days that the law does not prohibit, criminalize or prohibit the exportation of dogs and cats, the Ministry of Agriculture reiterated that the entry and exit of animals takes place through ports and airports. People who travel with their animals deny that there is a formal decision to allow the export of cat and dog meat.

MP Mona Mounir confirmed that the decision to export dogs contravenes the provisions of Article 45 of the Constitution, which obliges the state to protect and preserve plant, animal and fish wealth, and to protect the exhibition from extinction, danger and animal cruelty. .

Article 357 of the Penal Code stipulates that "any person who intentionally kills without the need or poison of an animal from domestic animals or causes great harm shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months or by a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds."

Egyptian law is punishable by intentionally killing or poisoning an animal or causing great harm to it (Al Jazeera)

Beginning of the story
The story of dog export began two years ago, when former Prime Minister Sharif Ismail denied reports published by newspapers and websites about the government's intention to export dogs to Korea as a new source of hard currency, after 10,000 donkeys were exported to China.

Then again the subject to reappear in October, the proposal of the Under-Secretary of the Commission on Human Rights in the House of Representatives Margaret Azar solution to the phenomenon of the spread of stray dogs to export to the countries that eat, such as Korea, after being compiled by animal welfare associations and the Veterinary Authority, and placed in a desert place expands For all those numbers, and provide them with a diet for at least a week.

ridicule
What is interesting is that MP Azar set the price of the source dog at at least five pounds (about $ 0.3), which aroused the Egyptians' ridicule on the media sites, saying that this price does not equal the price of one meal for the dog.

MP Azar proposed the collection of stray dogs in a special place in the desert before exporting (the island)

The Egyptians chanted on Twitter from the Ministry of Agriculture's remarks, asserting that the export of dogs would raise the price of "Hawashi" sandwiches (popular sandwiches made up mainly of chopped meat).

Even the Egyptian professional at Liverpool FC Mohammed Salah entered - late at night - to support a no-no-violation of animal rights, which mocks, and denounces the decision to export dogs.

Some wondered whether we would make the dogs slaughtered or alive. "If your dog was five pounds, you would have made very big gains," said one of them. "If we released cockroaches, the price of the clippers would be more than five pounds."

Fatwas are dim and contradictory
At the level of religious fatwas, scholars and sheikhs differed on the sanctity of exporting dogs. There were even elders who tried to hold the stick from the middle to get their fatwa out of the pale.

For his part, the director of the Department of Oral Validity and Secretary of Fatwa in the House of Iftaa Egyptian Sheikh Awaida Othman that there is no fatwa on the export of dogs to be eaten, as it is part of the new jurisprudence, which requires a collective fatwa for senior scientists, adding that he tends to prohibit.

Issawi said that "slaughtering dogs and eating them is haraam even if others do" (Al Jazeera)

"The slaughter of dogs and eating them are haraam even if others do; the Muslim is held accountable for his actions with those who believe in what we believe in, and with others," said the director-general of the Public Authority for Endowments Research in the Ministry of Awqaf, Noah al-Issawi.

On the other hand, the head of the Fatwa Committee in Al-Azhar previously Abdul Hamid Al-Atrash has the right to eat or kill cats. He added that there is a jurisprudential rule in Imam Malik's saying, "I have no problem eating dogs or cats." .

History of animal welfare
Asian dogs have been brutally cruel to animals before they are slaughtered. They cut off parts of their bodies or burn them because they believe torture increases the animal's adrenaline content before slaughter and makes it taste sweeter.

The first animal welfare decision was issued by Khedive Ismail Helmi in 1902 and provided for punishment of up to seven days' imprisonment or a fine of one Egyptian pound for any person who carried the animal with excessive loads, the use of injured animals at work, Animals, or tortured, or even neglected to feed or drink, or housing in a place not well-ventilated.