Democratic Montenegro and the Municipal Committee of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) Podgorica strongly condemned the desecration of the monument to Moša Pijada in Podgorica.
On the monument, which is located at the intersection of "Ivan Crnojevića Boulevard and Rista Stijovića Street", graffiti appeared on which was written "death to the Commune", and under those words a cross with four Cyrillic letters "s" was drawn.
"We strongly condemn the desecration of the monument of Moša Pijada, a well-known painter, journalist and art critic, and above all an anti-fascist and participant in the National Liberation Struggle. Isolated acts of vandalism, encouraged by outmoded and retrograde structures, cannot in the slightest degree conceal the dominant anti-fascist mood of the citizens of Montenegro , which, among other things, truly appreciates Moše Pijada's contribution to the rise of the Thirteenth of July Uprising and the fight against fascism," the Democrats' announcement states.
From that party, they called on the competent authorities to "urgently find and prosecute the perpetrators of this heinous act".
"Democrats remain committed to building the system of values of Montenegrin society, which will be based on preserving the legacy of anti-fascism and focusing on the implementation and adoption of modern European values, while at the same time nurturing multi-ethnic and multi-confessional harmony," the Democrats' statement reads.
DPS Podgorica said that "this senseless act shows that Montenegro is going through one of the most difficult periods of its own spirituality, in which all Montenegrin ideas and victims are being relativized and meaningless".
"The attack on the bust that celebrates the image and work of Moša Pijad is an attack on the achievements of anti-fascism, but also on all those who fell in the fight for the freedom of Montenegro. We tell the culprits not to hope that the new government, which is mostly made up of parties of clerical-nationalist and revisionist ambition, to destroy the testimonies of the great anti-fascist struggle, and that thanks to such a government, these and similar acts of theirs will go unpunished", said DPS Podgorica.
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