The mayor of Nikšić, Marko Kovačević, reported to the police 12 politicians and journalists and an NGO activist that they had caused threats that threatened the safety of him and his family, because they did not like his "political commitment", as well as because he is a Serb and Orthodox.
"Persons whom I reasonably suspect are part of the media lobby who construct news in order to provoke anger and hatred towards me, which leads to threats that endanger my safety and the safety of my family continuously since I have been serving as the president of the Municipality of Nikšić, all for the reason that they are bothered by my ethnicity, religion and political commitment are:", Kovačević states in the report he submitted to the police last week in the presence of his lawyer Sava Kostić.
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He also demanded that the persons who threatened him via social networks and in comments on some portals be "arrested and prosecuted", after he posted an offensive comment on Facebook ten days ago.
"This building of Zetska Banovina suits the President of the Parliament of Montenegro very well. And somehow it's normal that the Swabians are bothered by it," Kovačević wrote the day after the tense session of the parliament in Cetinje, alluding to the Germanic origins of Oskar Hutter, a member of the Democratic Party of Socialists, and the administration building that governed the territory of Montenegro during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1929 to 1941. .
Assembly President Andrija Mandić is Kovačević's party leader, about whom Huter said at the session "that his title of Chetnik duke does not go with the position he holds".
The Nikšić Prosecutor's Office did not find that Kovačević committed any criminal offense under their jurisdiction with this comment, but the Podgorica Higher Prosecutor's Office announced that they will determine whether it is within their jurisdiction.
“A whole page in two sentences”
Kovačević reported "Vijesti" journalist Biljana Matijašević as "the creator of a full-page article dealing with my two sentences on the social network Facebook" and Damir Suljević, from the Center for Civic Education, her interlocutor in the text "Suljević: Kovačević's new outburst is the reason for shift".
In that article, Suljević said that he believes that this is another attempt by Kovačević to additionally "heat" the already heated socio-political situation in Montenegro with his statements.
"The tolerance of NSD's coalition partners, both at the national and local levels, is worrying. By their silence, they affirm such and similar outbursts of the president of the municipality of Nikšić, which should actually be the reason for raising the issue of his dismissal and establishing the practice of appointing conscientious individuals to those positions who perform their work in a way that contributes to the development of society and not to its disintegration." assessed Suljević in that article.
Matijašević was questioned by the Nikšić police on Saturday.
Kovačević also reported the director of digital development of "Vijesti" Srdan Kosović, "the inspirer of the articles about me on the Vijesti portal, which aim to create an atmosphere of lynching and who in previous cases prejudged my guilt and put pressure on the judiciary and the prosecution to initiate proceedings against me because of my mechanical hand movement, etc."
Kovačević was under investigation on suspicion of denigrating state symbols because he showed the middle finger during the performance of the national anthem, but the prosecution determined that he had not committed a criminal offense. He claimed he was setting the clock.
Yesterday, Kosović said in his statement to the Podgorica police that he believes that it is about political pressure and that he does not understand at all what the relationship is between the fact that "Vijesti" was doing its job by informing the public and that Kovačević was threatened via social networks because of what which he wrote himself.
"It is unbelievable that some officials do not understand the task of the media so much, that they try to put the professional reporting of their public activities in the context of creating an atmosphere of lynching and inciting violence. Of course, 'Vijesti' will report on everything that is of public interest, just like before," Kosović told "Vijesti".
"And where's the apology"
When asked why he reported "Vijesti" journalists who were reporting professionally, Kovačević told the paper yesterday:
"Regarding 'Vijesti', I have not yet received an apology for the insinuations and the creation of an atmosphere in which I should have been prosecuted for the movement of a part of my hand (where it was insinuated that I should set the clock in prison) after that issue received an epilogue before the competent authorities and immediately started new interpretations of what I do or say without any opportunity for me to respond, so I got the impression that certain journalists are part of the same team that aims to maintain the atmosphere of lynching and inspiring threats to me and my family".
The mayor of Nikšić also reported Balša Knežević, "a journalist of the Aktuelno portal who threatens my religious rights as well as the right to freedom of religion, insults religious leaders and creates an atmosphere of lynching in which my safety and the safety of my family are threatened", Zoran Ćoć Bećirović, who " according to my knowledge, the editor of the portal Aktuelno" and Draško Đuranović, editor-in-chief of Pobjeda.
Đuranović was questioned by the Podgorica police the day before yesterday.
"Understanding the actions of the police, I find it appropriate to express my protest against this method of harassment, because I neither threatened nor could have incited threats to the president of the municipality of Nikšić via social networks, nor in any other way. That is why I consider Mr. Kovačević's application to be a kind of pressure on journalists in the performance of their journalistic work", according to the minutes of his hearing, "Pobjeda" reported.
Kovačević also reported Nikola Zirojević, a "politician" and Boris Muratović, a councilor of SO Nikšić, whom I suspect is the inspirer and writer of comments containing threats to my life and the safety of my family, so I demand that the police and the prosecutor's office confiscate phones and digital devices in order to check whether these suspicions are justified or not and whether he has anything to do with it”.
Also included in the application are "Sonja Milatović - member of the Nikšić Municipal Council, Aleksandra Vuković Kuč - MP in the Parliament of Montenegro, Ivan Vuković - Member of Parliament, Petar Odžić - SDP spokesperson, Nikola Đurašković - President of the Municipality of Cetinje"
Vuković Kuč reacted on Twitter to Kovačević's Facebook post about the Swabians and the Zetska Banovina building.
"Mandić's most talented denier of the state of Montenegro, untalented falsifier of history and Zavjetnica's most responsible student, provincially and petty-bourgeois, even though he is at the head of the city, provokes and shows all the contagiousness of his chauvinism".
Ivan Vuković stated on the X network that "after the recent fascist outburst of a member of parliament, which was shamefully silenced by his party colleagues, a new one happened today and it was, as expected, directed by M. Kovačević". "I call on his coalition partners from GP URA and DCG to condemn - and the Prosecutor's Office to urgently react to - hate speech!"
Vuković alluded to the statement of PES deputy Darko Dragović, who said in parliament that Huter cannot feel Montenegrin history in the same way as he and the other deputies, "indigenous Montenegrins".
SD MP Nikola Zirojević announced that Kovačević, with his "shameful statement" on the occasion of the Assembly session in Cetinje, only continued the campaign of inciting hatred, which he "has been carrying out for a long period of time with the approval of his coalition partners in Nikšić".
The deputy president of the SDP, Petar Odžić, said in a statement that "the vision of Prime Minister Milojko Spajić is surprising that he can bring the country into the EU with Chetnik dukes and people who see the country as someone else's banyan, and consider someone else's country as their motherland."
The police have already interrogated Đuranović and some of the reported politicians in their capacity as citizens, by order of the basic state prosecutor in Nikšić.
"A good and honest man"
The DPS said in the Assembly yesterday that Kovačević is not only bothered by their critical views, but also files reports against journalists and NGO activists, "which clearly supports the thesis that in Montenegro they want to intimidate oppositionists and stifle opposition speech. "I want to make it clear that we have not been 'hacked' and that we stand behind every word we speak and write." And that these reports submitted by Kovačević are nothing but a reflection of political hypocrisy and political cowardice," said MP Sonja Milatović.
Mandic responded to this in parliament, saying that Kovačević was a "good and honest man".
"A great politician, who will make Montenegro and its people proud. You filed a whole series of reports against me, and I didn't comment on it. "I assume that the prosecution will decide on the fate of those applications submitted by Kovačević," said Mandić.
The SD said that Kovačević is unsuccessfully applying pressure, twisting and manipulating, but that it will not go away. "Truth is Kovačević's greatest enemy, so it wouldn't be surprising if he files a criminal complaint against someone who puts a mirror in front of him. Marko Kovačević's attempt to twist and manipulate, in order to wash away the stain from his famous nickname and what it symbolizes, will not pass," announced the Social Democrats. They called on the prosecution to strictly follow the letter of the law and not allow it to be used for political purposes.
"They confessed everything"
Kovačević said yesterday that "by their reactions to my civil right to prosecute threats to my safety and the safety of my family, the majority of those who should be heard on that occasion proved the justification of suspicions that they are the instigators of the threats that I and my family receive". "The vocabulary used, personal insults, insults on national and religious grounds, coded messages (writing my last name in messages with a lowercase initial letter) that they send to each other in public and their other reactions are explicit evidence that they are indeed the inspirers of the threats that threaten the safety of me and my family. With these reactions, they only make the work of the competent authorities easier, for which I hope that they will find and adequately process all those responsible, the principals and the perpetrators", said Kovačević to "Vijesta".
In his application, he accused the police and the prosecutor's office of not revealing the people who have allegedly been threatening him for years.
"Very rarely, except in a few cases, they stood up to protect my safety and that of my family... Once again, I draw attention to the fact that the irresponsible behavior of the prosecution and often parts of the police contributed to my satanization in the media and created an atmosphere in which I and my family should be exposed to lynching , prosecuting often without grounds, as shown by the epilogues of court proceedings". He praised the prosecutor's office and the court from Rožaj and "part of the competent authorities from Nikšić, who have so far been the only ones to adequately process similar threats to my safety."
In the attachment to the application, Kovačević submitted excerpts from the social network Instagram, Facebook, and from Portal Analitika "as evidence that supports my allegations that I presented and concerns the application for endangering my personal safety and the safety of my family."
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