Member of Parliament from Democratic Montenegro, Momčilo Leković, could not wait until after May 3, World Press Freedom Day, to launch a brutal attack on half of the country’s leading media outlets.
Did MP Leković think that this was the perfect day — when the entire planet is talking about the safety and protection of media and journalists — to strike with full force against those same media and journalists in Montenegro? We will probably never know the answer to this question, and it is questionable whether MP Leković himself knows the answer.
In any case, MP Leković has burdened us with the difficult task of now having to explain to our international partners why our politicians cannot refrain from attacking the media and journalists at least on World Press Freedom Day. Not to mention how hard it will be for our politicians to explain such behavior by an MP in the continuation of negotiations with the European Union. If they have forgotten, let us remind them that without journalist safety, it will be very difficult to close negotiations with Europe.
How are we now to explain to the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office that all the progress they are making to improve journalist safety can be undone by a politician in just five minutes? To make matters worse, Leković is not just an MP — he is a member of a party that is in power and controls security in this country.
With this statement, Leković has also damaged the reputation of Reporters Without Borders, who had just yesterday ranked us high at 37th place on their global Press Freedom Index. One of the main categories in this ranking is the safety of media and journalists. After yesterday’s scandal, it is entirely logical that Reporters might question whether they had truly seen the reality of what is happening in Montenegro.
Perhaps it is now clearer why there are so many attacks on journalists and the media in Montenegro and why that number has multiplied several times since 2020. Perhaps it is now easier to understand how various anonymous individuals feel emboldened to threaten journalists whenever something in their work displeases them.
For all these reasons, we consider MP Leković’s statement yesterday to be extremely dangerous and alarming, and we condemn it in the strongest terms.
Ranko Vujović
Executive Secretary
Media Self-Regulation Council
