URA: Arrest Brajović, Đukanović, Kusovac and Beba Popović for "fake news".

The civil movement URA announced today that the President of the Parliament of Montenegro Ivan Brajović, the President of Montenegro Milo Đukanović, the head of the Government Bureau for Public Relations Srđan Kusovac and Vladimir Beba Popović should be arrested for "fake news", not journalists.

From that party, they announced that they sent strong criticism to the Police Directorate (UP) and the prosecutor's office, because of the third arrest of journalists in the last two months, demanding that the arrested journalists be immediately released from custody and that they be allowed to defend themselves from freedom.

"Because of the articles that an explosion had occurred in Villa Gorica, the editors-in-chief of the IN4S and Borba portals, Gojko Raičević and Dražen Živković, were arrested. Soon the Police Directorate (UP) denied the said news, saying that "there was a malfunction in the distribution box", and that there was no explosion," states the announcement of GP URA.

They said that this is why they sent proposals for specific activities to the Police Directorate.

"This is the third arrest of a journalist in just two months, while on the day of the protest, journalist teams were prohibited from moving around Podgorica and reporting from rallies. If the Police Department really wants to arrest someone for public lying or spreading fake news, we suggest that they go ahead and arrest Ivan Brajović - for lying in court and claiming that the highway will be finished by May 2019, Milo Đukanović - for the promised 40 jobs, or Srđan Kusovac and Bebo Popović - for the ocean of lies, spins and subterfuges. And let them start spreading right away of the capacity of the Institute for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions (ZIKS), because there is little space for all those who, according to the logic of the Police Administration, should be behind bars," said the URA GP.

That party recalled that before the arrest of Raičević and Živković, the former editor of the FOS media portal Anđela Đikanović was also detained.

"As an organization that has itself been a victim of fake news, we absolutely support reporting in accordance with journalistic ethics and condemn any deliberate manipulations and spins that aim to misinform the public. But disciplining journalists with handcuffs, in a country that for two decades has not been able to shed light on the murder of the editor-in-chief of DAN, as well as the shooting and beating of numerous media workers, is not the way to achieve such ethics. It is clear to everyone that we live in a police state, where all institutions work for the interests of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and its corrupt leader, Milo Đukanović. We are not surprised by such, captured institutions, but the arrest of journalists is still a great autocratic step forward that would be applauded by Đukanović's greatest dictator role models", the URA GP statement concludes.