The new mass murder in Cetinje, in addition to the holes in the system, has also exposed the intentions and willingness of tabloids, propaganda outlets of the authorities in Montenegro and Serbia, "wild" portals and party/national bots on social networks to use even the greatest tragedies for nationalist squabbles and fulfilling political goals, Darvin Murić, editor-in-chief of the Raskrinkavanje.me portal, announced today.
On January 1, Cetinje resident Aco Martinović shot and killed 13 fellow citizens, then committed suicide.
"Montenegrin society, Cetinje as a small town, has not yet recovered from the shock that befell them due to the mass murder more than two years ago, when media 'vultures' were gossiping, speculating, recycling old news about the killer for a click, racing to show which party he was a member of, and the same tragedy befell us," Murić pointed out in a statement.
He added that it is more than important to note that Montenegrin influential and mainstream media reported in accordance with the extreme seriousness of the situation.
"However, when everything fell silent, the only ones who were vocal were those who tried to place the senseless act in a national, religious and political context. Although government representatives publicly stated that the death of 13 innocent people had nothing to do with politics and nationalism, they began to dehumanize Cetinje," said Murić.
He stated that "the nationalist portal IN4S, regionally known for spreading disinformation, attempted to 'explain' how two unrelated tragedies in Cetinje were actually the result of national intolerance."
"In the conclusion of its piece targeting a nation, IN4S goes into the realm of the surreal by asking 'do we need curses from St. Peter for the 'bloodbath' or are we a civilized society'?" The narrative about curses or the curse of Cetinje gained momentum with the publication, on the front page, of the Belgrade tabloid Republika. This tabloid's story about 'Njegoš's curse' from the past, at the moment when 10 adults and two children were killed, was supposed to result in convincing people that a chapel must return to the top of Lovćen instead of a mausoleum," Murić said.
He also announced that crazy posts from social networks were getting space in regional media.
"Thus, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian portal Stav found it appropriate to publish a text with absolute speculation and conspiracy theories about a collective illness in Cetinje – schizophrenia, as the alleged reason for mass murders. That portal is spreading theories on the verge of reason – that Cetinje residents were rejected for service in the JNA because they suffered en masse from 'hebephrenic schizophrenia', all while trying to package it into reporting a heated debate on social media," Murić pointed out.
He said that as further "proof" that the people of Cetinje are missing something, and that everything is motivated by their nationality, a video was published on social networks and in tabloids from Belgrade, such as Alo, showing several people singing Ustasha songs, with claims that the murderer in the video was Aco Martinović, although it was obvious to the naked eye that he was not in the video, which was later confirmed to Raskrink by the police.
"The same tabloid, with the support of Informer, without any explanation in the headline, saw fit to publish the confession of the wife of one of those killed in the earlier mass murder in 2022 in Cetinje. The title of the article published by Alo read - 'I KILLED YOUR MITRA, HE WILL NOT MAKE YOU A SERBIAN' Confession of a woman whose husband was killed in the Cetinje massacre', all in order to put the latest mass murder into a national context. This tabloid also reported pub speculation that Martinović 'went mad because of a fight over the Christmas Eve', which also tries to give the crime a national connotation," said Murić.
According to him, numerous media outlets from Serbia, including Blic, Večenje novosti, and Srbija danas, published a video showing a man saying that he would die for Montenegro but that he would also lead others to their deaths, presenting it as if it was made the day after the tragedy, even though it is a video several years old and is absolutely not connected to the two mass murders.
"We have seen something unprecedented, one media outlet criticizing another for being 'late with information about the massacre'. In this way, Večernje Novosti boasted that they were getting information faster than Vijesti on a day like that," said Murić.
He also said that, on the other hand, numerous social media users wrote that the mass murderer was a believer in the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), but that the scale was lowered to the very bottom by the portal Aktuelno, which published a statement from a certain "United Montenegrin Diaspora from the United States of America", in which the event in Cetinje was called the "St. Sava ritual massacre".
"The same portal published a column titled 'If 1 Serbs had been killed on January 12st, no Montenegrin - not even one whose house is in a distant mountain - would have set off even the quietest firecracker on Christmas Eve'. The nationalist rampage on social networks was attempted to be explained with pseudo-intellectual nonsense that the reason for the mass murder was the 'identity of the siege' of Cetinje, and it went to the limits of common sense and mentioned incest as a factor," Murić said.
He also said that the Police Directorate has firmly promised to take action against any inappropriate comments, and that the Council for Citizens' Control of Police Work has announced out of the blue that the police are acting professionally.
"The prosecution says it has formed two entire cases. It is difficult to even talk about responsibility for disinformation in the media, it is, for now, an unknown category to institutions," said Murić.
Raskrinkavanje.me is the platform of the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) whose primary goals are to oppose media manipulations, increase the quality of media content, media literacy of readers and respect for professional standards on the media scene.
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