The Media Council for Self-Regulation is asking the Police Administration and the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica to urgently identify and prosecute the person who sent a death threat to Kristina Perković, a journalist of Standard portal, and her children via Instagram, and to qualify the act as a threat to security, not a misdemeanor.
We also request that the Police Directorate publicly announce how far they have come with the identification of the perpetrator, as well as that the Ministry of Internal Affairs informs the public how many of the 33 attacks on journalists recorded in 2025 have been processed and with what outcome. Without these data, any institutional promise to protect journalists remains declarative.
The threat addressed to Perković, which also refers to her children, represents a direct attack not only on the journalist, but also on media freedom in Montenegro. Perković immediately filed a criminal complaint with the Podgorica Security Center, and the Basic State Prosecutor's Office opened a case on the suspicion of the criminal offense of endangering security had been committed.
We expect the investigation to be conducted with the same seriousness with which the crime was committed. The case is not isolated, nor is it the first to affect the editorial office of the Standard. In October 2025, the chief editor of the Standard portal, Jasmina Muminović, reported a public threat addressed to the editorial office via Facebook, which the Basic State Prosecutor's Office Podgorica qualified as a misdemeanor, not a criminal offense, and the proceedings before the Basic Court in Podgorica are still ongoing. Such a qualification sends the wrong message that threats to journalists are treated as minor incidents. We call on the competent prosecutor's office not to repeat that practice in the case of Perković.
Statistics maintained by the Media Union of Montenegro show a pattern that should not be ignored. During year 2025, a total of 33 attacks on media employees were recorded, of which 18 were on female journalists. The Working Group for the Safety of Journalists has recorded nine attacks since the beginning of 2026. The fact that female journalists are still the primary targets, and that threats increasingly include sexualized violence and threats to family members, especially children, is also recognized in international reports. Only three weeks ago, on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, the European Union said that journalists must be protected in all circumstances, and specifically warned that female journalists are disproportionately often the targets of gender-based violence, including online harassment. The European Commission's report on the progress of Montenegro from November 2025, with all the praise, left the most serious warnings precisely in chapters 23 and 24, the rule of law and the judiciary. This last case of the journalist Perković belongs to these chapters.
Online threats cause the same consequences as physical attacks, fear, insecurity and self-censorship and must not be relativized because they take place in the digital space. Experience shows that threats that remain unsanctioned create conditions for escalation into physical violence.
The Media Council for Self-Regulation reminds us of the obligations that the Police Administration, the Supreme State Prosecutor's Office and representatives of the media community assumed by signing the Agreement on Cooperation in the Safety of Journalists, as well as the mandate of the Commission for Monitoring Investigations of Attacks on Journalists.
We also remind you of the unsolved cases that strain the journalistic community's trust in institutions: multi-year threats to the editor of the M portal Danica Nikolić, whose perpetrator, although identified, has not been sanctioned; physical attack on Pobjeda editor Ana Raičković; attack on photojournalists and journalists of Pobjeda and Vijesti, Stevo Vasiljević, Boris Pejović and Balša Rudović, in Gornji Zaostro, after which most of the attackers remained unidentified, and some who confessed to the act of coercion were acquitted.
The Media Council for Self-Regulation provides full support to journalist Kristina Perković and the editors of the Standard portal, and expects the competent authorities to treat this case with the seriousness required by the Constitution of Montenegro and the state's international obligations in the field of media freedom and protection of journalists.
MEDIA COUNCIL FOR SELF-REGULATION
