Afghans enjoy dog-fighting

Opinion: May 5, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Qayum Babak

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

BALKH

The two dogs close in on each other, grappling, mauling and snapping. After about 20 minutes, a winner emerges as the crowd shouts “Wakil,” the name of the winning animal’s owner.

Hashmat, a committed dog-fighting fan, pockets his winning after the match.

“I learned some skills in identifying strong contenders, and I win a lot and make my money this way,” he said.

Dog fighting was one of the many activities banned under the Taliban — the Quran says the Prophet Mohammad taught his followers to treat animals with care. Although it remains illegal today, both dog and cockfights are held regularly across the country.

Hashmat is hoping that the current government will legalize such matches and allow them to be held in public arenas.

After all, dog-fights that pit animals valued at as much as $20,000 regularly attract top government officials.

“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 taxi driver.

A man who said he worked as a referee at both dog and cockfights offered an insight into the business on condition that his name not be used.

Special diet

Dog owners will spend hours training and grooming their animals to prepare them for a match, sometimes raising them on a diet of eggs and milk to increase their strength, he said.

Dogs are usually about 3 years old when they first enter the ring and generally will continue to fight for the next five years.

“Before the fight, the referee checks the animals carefully to make sure their skin is not saturated with pepper or other chemicals, because some dog owners do this to win,” this referee said.

Because of the dog’s value — the price of a fighting dog can start at $3,000 — matches usually end not in death but with one of the combatants fleeing the ring.

“I hate this; it is inhuman to let animals fight,” said Enayatollah, a Mazar-e-Sharif resident, who recently attended his first dogfight.

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 said. “Human beings should not make two animals fight and stand back calmly watching.” But dog-fighting fans support the practice, noting that similar competitions are routinely, if illegally, conducted in the West.

“Dog-fighting is similar to human wrestling, which is popular in the West,” said Mohammad Jabbar Akbari, who also served as a dog-fighting referee. “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.”

The Taliban are known to target such contests, either because they consider them un-Islamic or because high-ranking government officials are in attendance.

Qayum Babak is a reporter in Afghanistan who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization in London that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.