Good morning! The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) decided to try to thwart the organization of Pride in Podgorica, probably with the hope of causing violenceꓼ Rade Milosevic resignedꓼ Stoltenberg sent an important message to Montenegro.
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Attack on Pride
The Serbian Metropolitan in Montenegro, Joanikije II, invited the faithful people of the Orthodox Church of Serbia to pray for the preservation of “family values”, and planned for Friday a rally to generate hatred towards the LGBT community, which is organizing Pride on Saturday. Throughout Pride Week, organized by the City of Podgorica in cooperation with the Organizing Committee of Montenegro Pride and the NGO Queer Montenegro, a series of events will be held to mark the decade of Pride.
Queer Montenegro’s Danijel Kalezic reacts to this call from SPC in an interview for RSE.
Just when we thought we had things sorted out when it comes to Pride, and when the marches have been going on for almost ten years without any incidents, SPC wants to pull us back into the Serbian World in this way, trying to generate and inspire violence, in a way that it did in Serbia during Europride in Belgrade.
Nobody has anything against family values, and if they really cared about them, they would investigate and punish examples of sexual violence against children in their ranks, and they would organize festivals like this for themselves, not as a reaction to Pride. Instead, he calls those who walk immoral, and thus protects “children, youth and fatherland”. Which homeland is the question which remains open.
Rad Milosevic’s departure
After numerous pressures, visible and invisible, Abazovic had to dismiss Milosevic. Although Milosevic initially allegedly refused to do so, Dritan managed to persuade him to resign. The text of the resignation is short, and in it, Milosevic admits objective responsibility and denies involvement in cigarette smuggling. Also, in the text, he highlights the successes achieved by the Revenue and Customs Administration while he was at its head. Vanja Calovic Markovic criticized Abazovic for dismissing Konjevic who pointed out this problem, while he had second thoughts about Milosevic.
In the continuation of the investigation into smuggling and malfeasance with seized cigarettes,other stakeholders were arrested: Zeljko Ivanovic, head of the Department for the Prevention of Smuggling, as well as members of the Commission for the Destruction of Seized Cigarettes of the Revenue and Customs Administration, Radivoje Vujacic, Misko Saveljic and Nebojsa Adamovic. Earlier, in the same case, the suspected president of the Commission for the Destruction of Seized Cigarettes, Elvir Adrovic, the head of the mobile anti-smuggling team of the Revenue and Customs Administration, Milutin Pejovic, and the driver of the truck with confiscated cigarettes, Dalibor Brnovic, were arrested.
Stoltenberg’s message
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted yesterday, sending support to Montenegro in the fight against Russia’s harmful and destabilizing influence. In this way, Stoltenberg expressed his solidarity with the measures taken by Montenegro in the fight against such influence. Many people interpret this kind of address at this moment as a direct message and a warning to Abazovic not to dare to continue with the shifts in the security sector and not to question the activities carried out to uncover the network of Russian agents.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst
