Iran poised to outlaw dog ownership

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Iranian dog owners: Go into hiding now! Lawmakers in this hostile state have proposed a new bill in parliament that would criminalize dog ownership. The bill warns that that dogs are a public health hazard and that the popularity of dog ownership "also poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the West."


Dog ownership in Iran has previously been treated much the same as gays in the U.S. military: Don't ask, don't tell. There have always been occasional crack-downs by the police (even though there is no law forbidding it), but the dogs and their owners were typically left alone, despite clerics  demonizing them in sermons.

The law would allow police to confiscate the offending dogs and impose a fine of $100 - $500 on the owner. No word on the fate of the offending dog.  "Considering the several thousand dogs in Tehran alone, the problem arises as to what is going to happen to these animals," Hooman Malekpour, a veterinarian in Tehran, told to the BBC. The  dogs likely will face the same fate as the hundreds of street dogs that the government regularly culls from the streets of Tehran. "Many in Tehran and other big cities find the killing of street dogs offensive and cruel," says Omid Memarian, a prominent Iranian journalist. "It's like the Iranian people and officials live in two different worlds." 

Frankly, I'm pretty sure this wave of dog ownership is a Zionist plot.