Before I underwent gender reassignment surgery, the media made a sensation out of my story for weeks. Everyone told me not to read the comments, because they were disturbing, so that I wouldn't further disturb myself before such an important event," he says in an interview with Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG) Jovan Ulićević, a trans man and executive director of the Spektra Association.
However, Jovan cannot forget one comment. "'Dabogda scribbled on that operating table' - of all the comments, that struck me the most. "I couldn't understand that someone wishes death to his fellow citizen - and he doesn't even know him," says Ulićević.
CIN-CG's research shows that hate speech has a very negative impact on members of the LGBTIQ community and their decisions about expressing their sexual identity.
"Because of hate speech, I don't want to get out of the car" - this is a statement that was marked by as many as 118 out of 209 respondents of the LGBTIQ population, who filled out the anonymous questionnaire of CIN-CG in connection with this topic. 86 of them marked the statement "Hate speech on the Internet makes me feel afraid of appearing at the upcoming Pride in Montenegro", while 103 of them stated that hate speech makes or once made them feel insecure.
Comments with hate speech provoked only a small number of respondents to get out of the car faster - 25 of them, and 47 of them have additional motivation to appear at Pride because of hate speech.
Research shows that hate speech against the LGBTIQ population intensifies even more during Pride. The Diversity Reporting Network (RDN) states that a significant increase in hate speech against the LGBTIQ population in North Macedonia was marked by June, the month when Pride took place in Skopje. The hate speech did not subside even in the following months. In Serbia, the number of threats to activists and citizens who support Pride tripled a month before Euro Pride, according to the organizers of this event. In addition to verbal, physical violence against members of this community has increased.
Monitoring of comments on Montenegrin portals conducted by the Center for Civic Education (CGO) in 2022 showed that hate speech towards the LGBTIQ population is one of the most frequent forms of hate speech.
The publication of the article "Tenth Montenegro Pride on October 8 in Podgorica" on the Facebook profile of RTCG, from the first of September, has 599 comments - only after dozens of comments with hate speech did some go astray affirming. This announcement has 572 reactions, of which the majority, 326 of them, express negative emotions towards the event - anger and ridicule.
The Public Service did not answer CIN-CG's questions about the policy of moderating comments on social networks, nor how they plan to prevent the spread of comments with hate speech during the upcoming Pride.
Other established media also do not take much care to remove comments with hate speech on their social networks. Hundreds of hateful comments and negative reactions are also typical under texts that concern the improvement of LGBTIQ rights, such as the topic of marriage.
The text on the Vijesti Facebook page from July 2021 "Montenegro registrars ready to conclude LGBT marriages" has 582 reactions, of which over 300 are negative. Of the 580 comments, most contain strongly negative messages, aggression, criticism, mockery. The same is true of RTCG's announcement "The first LGBT marriage was concluded in Podgorica", which has over 400 comments on the Facebook of the Public Service.
"The obligation to delete comments with hate speech within 60 minutes from the moment of knowledge, which was introduced by the Law on Media from 2020, made the number of such comments on the portals decrease," he told CIN-CG Vesna Rajković from the Media Institute of Montenegro.
However, the problem is social networks, because this law does not explicitly oblige the media to moderate their pages, explains Rajković.
As many as 126 CIN-CG respondents notice hate speech on social networks more often than on portal sites, while 81 of them believe that portals are the main source of hate speech.
More than a third of CIN-CG respondents, 77 of them, said that "hateful comments under the texts of established media on social networks offend me more than hate speech on other profiles." The majority of respondents believe that the media do not sufficiently moderate comments with hate speech either on portals or on social networks.
"Vijesti" claims that they respect the law and remove hate speech comments as soon as they receive a report.
"On social networks, it is much more difficult to moderate comments, because they come out first, and only then can they be deleted, unlike the system on the portal where they are first checked by the administrator," he told CIN-CG Srdan Kosovic, editor-in-chief of "Vijesti".
Kosović explains that "Vijesti" moderates more whenever there is an expected increase in comments with hate speech, such as on the eve of Pride.
From other portals read: Analitika, Dana and CDM did not answer CIN-CG's questions about comment moderation.
"Queer Montenegro reported hate speech comments in earlier years, emphasizing how much they threaten the safety of the LGBTIQ+ community and make it even more ostracized from a society that fosters democratic, European values. However, practice showed then, and now, that the reporting of comments was not sufficiently processed, or that only the engagement of administrators was insufficient," he told CIN-CG. Miloš Knežević, executive director of the organization Queer Montenegro.
Comments on social networks - an illegal and punishable act
"If the media is informed about comments with hate speech and does not remove them, they can be considered aides in the commission of the criminal act of Inciting national, racial or religious hatred or Racial and other discrimination," he told CIN-CG. Tea Gorjanc Prelevic from the NGO Action for Human Rights.
Helping is making available to the perpetrator the means to commit a criminal act, in this case an open profile on a social network, explains Gorjanc Prelević.
"Sanchez v. France" is a court case in which a French politician was fined 3.000 euros last year for allowing hate speech comments on his Facebook profile.
"The French court found that the politician was informed of the illegal comments, but left them up for six full weeks anyway. The European Court of Human Rights agreed that he was as responsible for spreading hatred as those who wrote those comments. The verdict is not yet final, but I expect that it will not be fundamentally changed,'' says Gorjanc Prelevic. The same should apply to all media, because their profiles on social networks are public places, where hate speech has a huge domain, she explains.
Anyone who sees hate speech in the comments should take a picture of that post and report it immediately to the media, but also to the state prosecutor's office, says Gorjanc Prelevic. It is a criminal offense like any other, but in order to be prosecuted, it must be reported, she says. "In the report to the prosecutor's office, it should be written that it is about the commission of the criminal offense Racial and other discrimination from Article 443, paragraph 3. It is possible to make the report anonymously."
Ulićević, on the other hand, claims that the authorities are not acting in accordance with the law. "Although hate speech is defined as a criminal offense, such situations are regularly treated by competent authorities as offensive speech or disturbance of public order and peace, which significantly relativizes the very concept of hate speech and its effects." This relativization also occurs in the public space under the guise of freedom of speech, which is particularly dangerous, Ulićević believes.
People from the community generally do not want to report the violence they encounter because of their identity, explains Knežević. "LGBTIQ people do not trust institutions. The penal policy is very lenient, and members of the community believe that the police will discriminate against them as well. Because of everything, they think that driving a car would endanger their lives", explains Knežević.
Portals in Montenegro should emulate foreign countries in this regard, Rajković believes.
"Recently, I was a guest at the most visited portal in Slovenia and when asked if you moderate comments on accounts on social networks, the editor replied 'of course, that's our responsibility'. A good example also comes from Australia, where in 2021 the court ruled that the media is responsible for readers' comments on its Facebook page," says Rajković.
A search of the Facebook pages of established media in Western Europe, such as "The Guardian" and "Spiegel", shows that there is no hate speech under the texts concerning LGBT topics, and the reactions are mostly aligned with the content of the text. Thus, the article about the banning of Pride in Istanbul in "Spiegel" has thousands of sad and angry reactions, and supportive comments, while the article in the British "Guardian" about the book concerning the parenting of LGBT couples has only positive reactions - hundreds of likes and hearts.
Unfortunately, the opposite trend is observed in Montenegro - texts that should cause negative reactions in civil society, mostly have the support of the public. Thus, the text published on the Facebook profile of the Public Service on September 21, which has 577 likes, talks about the fact that several countries, including Serbia, refused to participate in the campaign for LGBT rights during the upcoming World Cup, which was supported by almost all European countries.
Comments affect mental health and undermine hate
"The editors and administrators of official media pages on social networks do not understand how painful it is to publish offensive comments based on belonging to the LGBT community. Such comments not only make social acceptance difficult, but also life in the community itself", is one of the comments left by the respondent in the CIN-CG questionnaire.
The largest number of respondents, 108 of them, indicated that they feel sad when they see comments with hate speech. About a hundred respondents marked the options "angry" and "offended", and 88 of them marked the option "excluded, as if I don't belong in society". About a quarter of respondents marked the options "depressed" and "less valuable". A minority, only 39 respondents, remain immune to these comments and marked the option "indifferent".
"Research in England from last year found that online abuse has consequences for the victim's mental health and experience of their own identity. The aggressor says that the victim is not good as he is, that he should be ashamed, and after enough time of exposure to that pressure, the victim begins to feel that shame and shame," the psychologist tells CIN-CG Adriana Pejaković.
The feeling of being unsupported, helplessness and the lack of support from institutions and society lead to a person withdrawing from the world, isolating themselves, often their mental health declines and a closed cycle or spiral of vulnerability is created, explains Pejaković.
"According to data from the Norwegian Institute of Science from 2019, people have twice the chance of being victims of discrimination compared to the general population, as well as a greater chance of experiencing threats online," Pejaković claims.
A 2022 survey by the American Psychological Association states that LGBTIQ youth are more likely to commit suicide, but that this rate drops significantly in US states that have strict hate crime laws. In these countries, the suicide rate among heterosexual youth is also lower.
The editor-in-chief of "Vijesti" Srdan Kosović says that the problem of hate speech through comments is only part of the general context. "It is about a broader social problem, which is far from being solved by more effective control of comments, but certainly stronger reactions to hate speech could have positive effects," says Kosović, who is one of the few representatives of the Montenegrin media who responded to participate in our research.
Discrimination and hatred on the rise
The statements made by the state leadership in Serbia that there were no injuries on the day of Europride are not true, according to the press release of the NGO "Da se zna" from Belgrade, which deals with documenting illegal treatment of LGBT+ people. They state that they recorded "14 incidents motivated by homophobia and transphobia that happened on that very September 17, 2022, on the day of the Euro Pride Walk. Of these, in eight incidents there was a physical attack on groups and individuals, while in other incidents harassment and destruction of property was committed. Physical attacks in most cases left bodily injuries.''
During August, this association recorded "over 30 incidents motivated by hatred towards persons who are part of the queer community, but also towards the entire community in the form of hate speech and the creation of a hostile atmosphere in public space, and the August figures are higher than the number of recorded incidents during all previous months combined since the beginning of the year".
However, hate crimes and hate speech against the LGBTIQ community are not only a problem in the Balkans.
"In recent years, there has been an increase in the rate of hate speech and hate crimes that target people and organizations based on sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual characteristics," according to the 2021 Council of Europe report.
Several laws have been passed in Hungary that are strongly discriminatory towards the LGBTIQ community. Thus, members of the LGBTIQ community are excluded from the family law, where the family is treated strictly as a unit of children and two parents - male and female.
According to the 2021 law, minors are prohibited from being exposed to homosexual or transgender content in films, commercials and sex education classes.
In 2019, several municipalities and regions in Poland declared their territories "zones free from LGBTIQ ideology", in order not to ban events like Pride. By 2020, over a hundred municipalities have adopted this concept, which is about a third of the country. After the European Union decided to cancel the funding of these municipalities, some withdrew their decisions.
At this year's Pride in Oslo, two people were killed in a shooting, and many others were injured.
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