BIRN's Director for Montenegro, Vuk Maraš, assessed the gesture of world-renowned guitarist Miloš Karadaglić, who decided to return the Thirteenth of July Award, as completely understandable.
As he stated, unlike Karadaglić, the literary achievements of the other laureate, Bećir Vuković, remain completely unclear to him.
Maraš emphasized in "Colors of Morning" on TV Vijesti that this is about civilizational attitudes and that a denier of any nation does not deserve this recognition, which is why the jury did not do its job professionally.
"We have increasingly extreme examples of awarding prizes to people who do not deserve it. Some political structures obviously consider it more important for them to collapse the system than to make it prestigious. One of this year's winners, Bećir Vuković, is a man who denies the Montenegrin nation, spreads hate speech and advocates Chetnik ideology. Such a profile cannot receive a state award. Montenegrin identity and the state get in the way of him at every turn, except when it comes to money from the budget," said Maraš.
He reminded that year after year the award is undermined by choices that have nothing to do with achievements, but with political calculations.
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