Friday, October 24 - God kill me if I understand anything more in this country of mine...
A young man from Kosovo, Edison Shehu, has been sentenced to ten days in prison and will be expelled from Montenegro for writing graffiti with the name KLA.
The punishment was based on the Public Order and Peace Act...
And what's the problem?...
To begin with, Article 18 prescribes the punishment of "anyone who causes damage by writing graffiti or other inscriptions on buildings, monuments or other objects."
Despite being formulated in the singular, the law refers to the plural. Which means that, before the unfortunate Edison, dozens or hundreds of Montenegrin citizens should have been sent to a ten-day prison boarding house...
Finally, the problem is that the verdict was not handed down for writing graffiti in principle, as stipulated by law, but for one detail in the content that is not prohibited by law.
KLA is an abbreviation for Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës - Kosovo Liberation Army.
That army fought for the independence of Kosovo.
Montenegro officially acknowledged in October 2008 that the struggle for an independent state was both legal and legitimate.
Seventeen years later, he refuses to acknowledge - the abbreviation for the name of that army.
And let's not just recognize it, but rather the Montenegrin judiciary - in violation of the law - declares it illegal with a misdemeanor verdict.
At the same time, the head of the legislative branch and almost half of the Parliament and the Government consider not only shortened and extended graffiti about convicted war criminals, but also monuments erected in gratitude for their crimes to be legal...
* * *
Saturday, October 25 - During halftime of a football match in Nikšić, around 40 "Vojvodi" fans, who were hidden in the official premises of "Sutjeska", attacked fans from Berane...
They were pelted with stones and other improvised weapons, and two police officers and two civilians were injured...
Of the forty or so "duke" groups mentioned in the police statement, the magistrate fined five.
And that's just in cash, from 400 to 600 euros...
I guess because they only stoned police officers and fans on the field, if they had written graffiti about them in the stands they would have gotten ten days in prison...
* * *
Sunday, October 26 - "Kill, kill, kill Turkaaaa, Turkaaaa," echoed through Zabjelo last night at a protest by a group of locals...
With a massive police presence who, for reasons that the prosecution has yet to investigate, walked completely relaxed past the protesters...
At least two criminal acts were committed by inciting murder and spreading national hatred, and they were committed over an extended period of time...
Despite this, no one ended up in a ten-day prison pension, nor was anyone fined 400 or 600 euros. Probably because there were no conditions for writing graffiti and the stones only came after the protest ended...
- We know what happened. The Police Directorate will officially inform the public - said Minister of Police Danilo Šaranović from the scene.
They didn't know...
And the embarrassment that the Police Directorate informed the public about should never have happened.
It was terrifying to watch, let alone experience, that line-up with hands up and faces facing the wall, as if in front of a firing squad...
Prime Minister Milojko Spajić's announcement that - due to a bar-street fight in which one of the participants was unfortunately injured - he would introduce visas for all Turkish citizens tomorrow at dawn was also shameful.
And now I don't know what's worse, that by sanctioning a nation because of an individual, he further inflamed the chauvinists in an already heated night...
Or that he used populist pandering to the masses to fulfill tasks from two partnerships with one decision - with the European Union and with (pro)Serbian parties in the government...
However, he did not mention visas for Serbian citizens when two of its citizens stabbed a minor in Herceg Novi this summer...
Nor did the police then line up citizens of a neighboring country as if they were in front of a firing squad...
* * *
Monday, October 27 - Amidst the great noise in Podgorica, due to the disease called hatred, the news of the tragedy of a family in Nikšić passed almost silently.
A baby died suddenly at the General Hospital on the fourth day of life. Born healthy, with the highest grade after a birth that went quite smoothly, without any problems.
The preliminary autopsy findings indicate possible negligence on the part of the staff, as the baby choked on milk while spitting up...
Despite the mother's warning about spitting up after breastfeeding, the baby was taken to the photosynthesis room due to jaundice.
They parted ways for a day, that's how it was supposed to be, but...
- The baby was left alone - the family says - there was no one to help her, to turn her, pat her, whatever...
The farewell forever came an hour later...
And, no matter how the investigation ends, it will be a blow to the state government, because in five years it has done nothing to cure the chronically ill healthcare system...
And, whoever and whatever verdict is handed down one day, it will bring neither comfort nor justice to parents and relatives...
* * *
Tuesday, October 28 - It would be fair, for the sake of the babies yet to be born, if the tragedy never happened again...
But, we were hoping for that eleven years ago when five babies were infected with the bacteria at the General Hospital in Bijelo Polje, one of whom died...
The public wasn't as silent then as it is now...
Nor did the Minister of Health play dead, but resigned...
Three healthcare workers were arrested and detained, and an investigation was launched against two more... The Assembly questioned everyone responsible in the chain for five hours...
Many government representatives, including three of the highest...
The opposition at the time, both in and out of parliament, fiercely accused the government of the baby's death...
Now they are the government and - dead silence...
That silence was broken today only by a brief announcement that "The Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica has opened a case regarding the death of a newborn at the Nikšić General Hospital, which is currently in the investigation phase"...
And one hospital note confirming "that an unfortunate incident occurred in the neonatal unit, resulting in the death of a newborn"...
And that "the Hospital management has taken all actions within its jurisdiction"...
And also that "an urgent meeting of the Commission for the Control of Health Care Quality is expected"...
AND...
Nothing more, all that remains is the hope that, unlike the noise that accompanied the previous tragedy, this silence will have a more just epilogue...
* * *
Wednesday, October 29 - There is still no epilogue to the pub-street fight and injuries, if you don't count another group outburst of hatred in Podgorica...
And those individuals throughout Montenegro... Who were most affected by the silence of the authorities about the lies that have been told many times...
Only when unity of action was achieved between the otherwise feuding Orthodox brothers in calling for murder, demolishing shops, cars and other property, did we learn part of the truth...
If there weren't seven stab wounds but one...
That there are not a hundred thousand Turkish citizens here, but about fourteen...
That they are only the fourth largest group with temporary residence...
That they broke the laws drastically less than citizens of Serbia, Russia, Ukraine and other countries...
Perhaps other 'tics' would have sung in Zabjelo and in front of the Government, if all this had been announced the day after the fight and the injuries, and not only when the chauvinistic hysteria had spread beyond Podgorica...
The Police Department doesn't need to explain to normal people that walking around with a kitchen knife in your pocket isn't exactly realistic...
Who attacked whom, she would have to explain that...
Just like the laxity of their officials while criminal acts were committed in their presence at another protest...
But, after yesterday's scandal with the shortening of the video, which has been on the internet since the first night - as the best expert on endemic Montenegrin hatred, Mihailo Lalić, would say - I give my signature, I don't hope for success...
Bonus video:
