You are reading a daily contextual review of the news that marked the previous day.
By Ljubomir Filipović, CdM observer
Clashes in the Parliament
The last sitting of the Parliament of Montenegro in 2020 was marked with controversy. The amendments to the Freedom of Religion Law were adopted after midnight, lacking transparency, through a procedure whose legality was quite questionable.
Saving private Adžić didn’t run smoothly, as several procedural stages were missed due to the rush. The opposition used this to question the legality of the entire process. However, the government still has the undisputed majority to challenge the Freedom of Religion Law, and it did it. There’s a question for URA: why do we have to listen to cleansing of conscience of its members who backed the dominant position of the Serbian Orthodox Church, SPC? Despite the heated debate at the plenum, the behavior of the new Human Rights Committee, which has been ignoring the existence of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, CPC, as a religious community, proves arrogance of the new government.
Let us also mention the formal points of dispute: the alleged violation of the Rules of Procedure, which may pass, but with the conflict with the State Election Commission, DIK, is a little bit more difficult. Despite the warnings and without DIK’s approval, in which the DPS still has a majority, the Parliament verified the mandate of Ms Suada Zoronjić to replace the fugitive, Mr Filip Adžić.
URA again yelled at us, it threatened DIK as well. And then it presented its amendments to the law in the parliament, thus trying to boost its already compromised integrity.
Protest in front of the Parliament
Even though the Interior Minister threatened a little bit two days ago, the mass protest in the capital Podgorica was peaceful. Majority of protesters wore face masks, sang patriotic songs and yelled “We won’t give our state”. One could hear insults and inappropriate wording referring to the officials of the new government. The speaker of the protest was a young academic, Mr Nemanja Batrićević, who compared today’s decision of MPs to treason. He especially criticized the leaders of URA, Mr Abazović, Mr Rakčević and Mr Adžić.
Fake conflict or real one
Co-owner and columnist of Vijesti, Mr Željko Ivanović, in his latest column defended Mr Filip Adžić and attacked President of URA Council, Mr Žarko Rakčević, reflecting on his recent appearance on A1 TV, when Mr Rakčević revealed that he and a part of URA Main Board members hadn’t vote in favor of the amendments to the Freedom of Religion Law. Beside political insults, he accused Mr Rakčević of making secret deals with Mr Aleksandar Vučić to buy shares of the Institute ‘Simo Milošević’.
DHL Express
The night before the Freedom of Religion Law was adopted, Mr Dritan Abazović had announced an extraordinary press conference. Some were saying that it was about extradition of Mr Svetozar Marović. In the end, we found out that it was organized to honor DHL parcel for Belgrade. The parcel had the Request for Extradition of Mr Svetozar Marović. Mr Abazović starts to look like Mr Aleksandar Vučić with all those manners and sense for drama.
That’s all for today. Until tomorrow.
