The number of applications filed for hate speech against members of the LGBTI community did not increase compared to previous years, but it did not decrease either, says the president of the Board of Directors of LGBT Forum progress. Bojana Jokić.
The non-governmental organization announced that by September, they had submitted a total of 114 reports to the Police Directorate for hate speech addressed to LGBTI people "in the online space".
Jokić points out that the comments that come across from that organization during the monitoring of social networks, which are addressed to marginalized groups, are worrying.
"Unfortunately, Progres does not have enough capacity to file reports for hate speech in general, but it often happens that we file reports when discrimination, stigmatization and hatred is directed at another group. "We are particularly concerned about hate speech directed at women, especially those women who are in the public sphere, because they are often exposed to objectification, sexualization and misogyny," Jokić said.
Regarding cooperation with the competent authorities, specifically the Police Directorate, she points out that it is at a satisfactory level, but that there is room for improvement.
"...However, most of the legal solutions do not follow negative phenomena on social networks, and therefore the results are also missing", assesses the president of the Management Board of that organization.
The LGBT Forum of Progress reminded that their monitoring team submitted thousands of reports to the Police Directorate in the past decade.
"Thus, the continuity of pointing out hate speech as a negative phenomenon, which is still ubiquitous in Montenegro, was achieved. It is the continuous process of his reporting that is addressed to the LGBTI community that plays a key role in the fight against discrimination and the creation of a safe environment for all LGBTI people in Montenegro," said the NGO.
Jokić notes that despite the fact that the number of reports of hate speech is not high, a false image is created of the lack of cases of discrimination.
"If we were to compare the statistics of one Sweden in the context of judgments for discrimination, hate speech, segregation and other forms of expression of hatred in public space, we would come to know that the number of judgments in Sweden is incomparably higher than those in Montenegro, which would imply that in There is much more hate speech in Sweden than in Montenegro, and such a conclusion is, of course, insane. It is about the fact that the majority of hate speech in our country is processed according to the Law on Public Order and Peace, and not according to the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination, as it was intended, and thus the official statistics of the courts create the image that there are very few cases of hate speech in Montenegro. , discrimination, segregation and other forms of discriminatory behavior", she explains.
Bojana Jokić told "Vijesta" that such a negative trend "cannot be attributed to just one institution, but there are several factors".
"The overall conclusion is that the system does not function as intended, and that results and fair verdicts are missing because of this, and on the other hand, a message is unwittingly sent to people who promote hatred on the Internet, that they will be punished with the lightest possible punishment, or not at all. What I would call a form of unconscious approval of this type of behavior," said Bojana Jokić.
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