Nationalists in flight. Montenegro approved a new law “On freedom of religion”
Today, after midnight, the Montenegrin parliament approved amendments to the law “On Freedom of Religion”, repealing articles that discriminated against the Serbian Orthodox Church.
41 deputies voted for the bill proposed by the government.
As a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, Montenegrin deputies approved two amendments to the law adopted by the previous Assembly, which was dominated by nationalists from the party of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic - the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), proposed by the liberal State Duma URA. Under this version of the law, the state can no longer lay claim to the property of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
At the same time, the day before, the DPS sharply opposed the adoption of the amendments under the pretext that they allegedly provide privileges to only one people and church - the Serbs and the SOC. Their opponents from the ruling majority, on the contrary, emphasized that the law gives all religious communities in the country equal rights. As a result, Djukanovic’s party faction left parliament, hoping that after their departure there would be no quorum, but it later turned out that there were enough people’s representatives present to vote for the amendments.
Having learned about this, the leadership of the DPS, led by ex-Prime Minister Dusko Markovic, returned to the meeting room to challenge the participation of two deputies in the voting - Maja Vukicevic from the Serbian “Democratic Front”, who connected to the process remotely, and Sauda Zoronic from the State Duma URA, whose deputy The mandate has not yet been confirmed. Without these two votes, the process was on the verge of breakdown, after which Markovic came to blocking Assembly of nationalists and called on them to disperse, since the consideration of the amendments was to be postponed until today.
However, upon his return, Markovic was in for an unpleasant surprise: despite the fact that the State Commission did not confirm Zoronich’s mandate, the deputies themselves did so. After which a vote on the amendments took place, and the new version of the law was adopted.
After the Assembly adopted the first version of the law on December 28, 2019, mass protests began in Montenegro, since in this form it threatened to confiscate 650 Orthodox shrines of the Serbian Orthodox Church in favor of Western-controlled “autocephalous” schismatics - in fact, it was a repeat 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.
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