Nationalists in Montenegro under the US flag disrupted voting in defense of the rights of the Serbian Church

In Montenegro on Monday, nationalists and supporters of the party of local pro-Western dictator Milo Djukanovic disrupted a vote in parliament for a new version of the law “On Freedom of Religion”, which was supposed to replace the controversial document adopted at the end of 2019 and threatening the Serbian Orthodox Church with the confiscation of its churches and monasteries in the benefit of dissenters controlled by the authorities.

The vote of a member of the liberal pro-Western movement URA, who forgot to confirm her mandate, was not enough for a quorum, and the procedure was postponed to Tuesday.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

As a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, on Monday the Montenegrin Assembly was supposed to vote on the government’s proposed changes to the bill “On Freedom of Religion”, which would be stripped of articles that discriminate against the Serbian Orthodox Church.

In the morning, “komitas” - Montenegrin nationalists who support the president - dictator of Montenegro Milo Djukanovic and the schismatic "Montenegrin Orthodox Church" - began to gather at the building of the Montenegrin parliament. The participants of the action surrounded the parliament building, carrying with them the flags of Montenegro, the green flags of the Komita collaborationist movement and, characteristically, the flags of the United States. The nationalists held posters “Montenegrin State. Montenegrin Church. Montenegrin people,” they burned smoke bombs. In Niksic, a crowd of “comites” in a car tried to block the tunnel, but quickly dispersed when the municipal police appeared.

Djukanovic's party decided to disrupt the adoption of the bill, declaring that it would not take part in the vote and left the Assembly. The nationalists' calculation was that without their participation there would be no quorum to pass the bill. Following the deputies, the Comite crowd near the parliament also dispersed. However, it later turned out that there was enough quorum even without those who left, after which they decided to carry out the voting procedure, to which the leaders of the nationalist faction, led by the ex-Prime Minister, Milo Djukanovic’s right-hand man, Dusko Markovic, immediately reacted, and returned back. Along with them, as if on cue, crowds of committees returned and even tried to storm the Assembly, but were stopped by the police.

As a result, the counting commission found out that the mandate of the deputy from the liberal URA, Sauda Zaronich, did not go through the confirmation procedure, for this reason it was decided to postpone the vote until tomorrow.

“Of course, you can expect anything from them, that’s why we stay here. Go home, it's cold, you're tired. From 22:00, according to epidemiological measures, movement is prohibited. Let's agree together that we will see each other tomorrow and other days. This fight has just begun, it will not end today,” Markovic admonished his pocket nationalists.

Mass protests have been taking place in Montenegro since December 2019 after the country’s parliament passed a law that threatens the confiscation of 650 Orthodox shrines of the Serbian Church in favor of Western-controlled “autocephalous” schismatics - in fact, we are talking about a repetition of the scenario implemented in Ukraine.

Montenegro separated from Serbia in 2006 under the pretext of “faster integration into the EU”, but has still not received EU membership. In 2017, against the will of the population, Montenegro was included in NATO by the pro-Western ruling elite without a referendum. Now about 30% of the population of this former part of Yugoslavia call themselves ethnic Serbs.