On April 7th, 2014, the societies Hope for Animals-Riska, Link Plus and Feniks, have sent a report to Minister of Defense Nebojša Rodić, requesting to investigate the real state of affairs at the Institute for Medical Research of Military-Medical Academy (VMA).
The societies have informed the minister that they have brought charges for a breach of the Animal Welfare Law, and Book of Regulations, in terms of conditions of registration in the Registry of animal experiments, the way that the registry has been kept and it's contents, animal welfare training program, form of requests for approve of animal experimentation, care of the animals, handling and taking a life of an animal, as well as other breaches of Law and Book of Regulations.
According to societies' knowledge, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management have not issued a license for conducting an experiment on eight dogs of German shepherd breed, belonging to Serbian Military, for examining a stimulator for more efficient oral implant implementation, because that kind of license hadn't been requested. The Ethical Committee for Animal Experimentation of VMA had not approved the experiment, the procedure defined by Book of Regulations hadn't been complied. The experiment was conducted in opposition to the Book of Regulations, especially art.18, art.20, art.22, art.29, and in opposition to Animal Welfare Law, art.42, pg.5. Also, the regularity of forming of the ethical committee should be questioned, according to Animal Welfare Law, art.52.
We have requested that, according to his authority, the minister should examine if our knowledge is correct, because there is a serious doubt that an unauthorized and unlawful experiment on military dogs is being perpetrated at VMA.
Translated by: Katarina Samurović