Going to the Dogs

The two dogs close on each other like wrestlers, grappling, mauling and snapping for 20 minutes until a winner emerges, raising an excited chant of “Wakil” – the owner’s name - from the hundreds of spectators.

Money changes hands, including a bundle of notes that disappears into the pocket of Hashmat, a committed fan of Afghanistan’s illegal yet openly conducted multi-million-dollar dog fighting culture.

“I learned some skills in identifying strong contenders, and I win a lot and make my money this way,” he told IWPR, declining to say how much this fight earned him from the crowd of punters who placed bets.

It is one of Afghanistan’s many contradictions that while this activity was banned by the Taleban - the Koran says the Prophet Mohammad taught his followers to treat animals with care - it thrives today in all sectors of society despite its continuing unlawful status.

Like other fans of dog- and also cock-fighting, Hashmat said he hoped for formal recognition of its popularity through legalisation, and for provision by the government of proper arenas and facilities.

As well as ordinary Afghans, top state officials are said to be regulars at dog-fights around the country, pitting animals worth anything up to 20,000 US dollars against rivals.

“If you do not believe me, you should go to one of the dog-fight arenas on a Friday and witness for yourself the attendance of many parliamentarians, commanders and senior government officials,” said Mohammad, a tax driver, who told IWPR that he had recently been paid 300 dollars just to drive the dog of an influential member of the presidential administration to a fight.

A Mazar-e-Sharif resident, who spent 40 years of his life rearing fighting animals and is a referee of dog- and cock-fighting competitions, gave IWPR an insight into the racket.

“Before the fight, the referee and two bailiffs check the animals carefully to make sure their skin is not saturated with pepper or other chemicals, because some dog-owners do this to win,” he said, explaining that the substances deter the other dog from biting and may even render it unconscious.

He said intensive breeding and grooming is a must for owners who want their contenders to make the big time, “Dog owners take their animals jogging for three to four hours daily so that they lose weight.”

Dogs are usually fed egg and milk to increase their physical strength. They are ready to fight at about three years old and command a starting sale price of 4,000 to 5,000 dollars. In a grim reflection of the store placed on prize specimens, kidnappers of an 11-year-old girl in northern Kunduz province in 2007 traded her back for a dog.

Animals generally have up to five years of competition fighting in them. Given their value, they are not encouraged to kill one another, and a match usually ends when one dog flees the arena, triggering wild applause for the wealthy winners from hundreds of ordinary spectators.

In a country where the United Nations says more than 60 per cent of people live below the poverty line, the high level of engagement and expense lavished by patrons and fans alike might seem incongruous.

But the fact is that Afghans will pretty much set any animal on another for gaming purposes, from dogs to rams to camels, much to the abhorrence of critics.

“I hate this; it is inhuman to let animals fight,” said Enayatollah, a Mazar-e-Sharif resident, who was attending a fight for the first time out of curiosity.

“Some of the people who breed these animals and make them fight have blood on their hands, have killed human beings themselves and enjoyed it. Now they relive this by tormenting animals.”

Mawlawi Abdolqasem, the imam of Mazar’s Rawza mosque, condemned the practice and demanded that the government take action to stamp it out.

“Making animals fight is completely prohibited in Islam,” he told IWPR. “Human beings should not make two animals fight and stand back calmly watching.”

He blames all modern day calamities in Afghanistan on the failure of the authorities to implement basic Islamic tenets.

Adherents of the competitions hesitate to comment on the religious context. But they quickly rebuff condemnation from animal rights advocates in Europe and North America, where it should be noted that dog fighting is also practiced illegally.

“Dog-fighting is similar to human wrestling, which is popular in the West,” said Mohammad Jabbar Akbari, a referee in one of the local arenas. “The only difference is that dogs fight in the former and humans in the latter, so you could say we are one ahead of the westerners.”

But the violence is not limited to the arena. Where there is so much money at stake and passions run so high, animal fights often escalate into human conflict.

In October 2009, the owner of a defeated dog in Kandahar did not accept the ruling and reacted by killing two brothers whose animal was pronounced victor.

Fights have also been devastated by bomb blasts that are thought to be Taleban retaliation for the un-Islamic practice or targeted assassination of senior officials attending.

In southern Helmand province, three people were killed and 31 wounded in February when a bomb went off at an arena.

Two years earlier, a suicide bombing at a competition taking place outside Kandahar city killed around 80 people and injured scores more. Among the dead was pro-government paramilitary forces commander Abdolhakim Khan, who investigators said was probably the intended victim.

But even such horrific incidents show no sign of dampening enthusiasm for the dog-fighting culture, and nor does the government show any sign of enforcing laws against it.

Qayum Babak is an IWPR-trained reporter in Balkh province.