The corpse of a fox was astoundingly found in a residential district of Bucharest, many kilometres inside the town. Razvan Tiru, the director in the City Hall in charge with the criminal programme of culling the street dogs of Bucharest, promptly made a public statement that the situation is very serious, because rabies has been reported in several areas in Romania and it seems that the fox was killed in a fight with the street dogs and a dog severely bitten left the scene of the incident. If necessary, the army could get out on the streets to shoot all dogs.

But it seems that the (i)responsible people in the City Hall went a step too far. The Director of the Bucharest Sanitary Veterinary Agency, Dr. Narcisa Mirica announced that the rabies diagnosis of the fox is negative and started an inquiry on the circumstances in which the corpse of a fox could get on the street almost in the centre of Bucharest. She suspicions that the corpse was planted there to stir panic in Bucharest and stated that rabies epidemic is out of question in Bucharest. (Source: Prima TV, TVR1, news bulletins 17 May evening)

The incident follows a meeting of President of Romania, Ion Iliescu, with a representative group of top culture and sport Romanian personalities in which they asked for the madness of dogs killing to be stopped. President Iliescu expressed compassion and promised to do his best to stop the abuses and determine the passing of an animal protection law. The meeting was also attended by Giana Donesama, Editor in chief of the Italian "Stop" magazine and Emilio Nessi, reporter for RAI Uno (the same one who got the statement of Traian Basescu that the lethal injection with magnesium sulphate is done without prior aesthesis "due to limited resources") and its coverage will be broadcasted at the Italian televisions.

But in the mean time, atrocities ordered by the criminal Mayor Traian Basescu continue: more than 1700 dog corpses have been officially processed in the large "Protan" protein powder factory near Bucharest, said inspectors from the Ministry of Agriculture. Citizens protesting during captures are brutalised and only bribes are saving innocent dogs from being massacred.

17 May 2001