Democratic Front

In a gesture seen as provocative towards the Montenegrin government, the Serbian Defence Minister, Aleksandar Vulin, handed a medal on Sunday in Belgrade to a prominent opposition politician in Montenegro who the government considers a coup plotter.

The Russian Ministry said that "the unity and solidarity of the Orthodox world, as well as the preservation of its centuries-old foundations, are crucial for ensuring the normal development of society."

Knezevic, a fierce critic of the three-decade-long rule of Djukanovic, was one of two Front leaders, along with Andrija Mandic, convicted in the first-instance ruling of involvement in a failed coup in 2016, which the authorities claim originated in Russia. They have appealed their sentences. 

The Episcopal Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro on Sunday expelled Montenegrin government representatives and MPs after the Freedom of Religion Law was passed despite unrest in parliament last week.

The church urged government officials to start a dialogue before the law becomes a source of serious social divisions with unprecedented consequences.

The prosecution had previously assigned the same measure to another MP of Democratic Front (DF), Milun Zogovic.
DNP leader Milan Knezevic is currently at the hearing, Podgorica based "Vijesti" reported. Mandic and Knezevic were arrested last night on suspicion of committing criminal offense of preventing an official from performing his official duties.

Three pro-Serbian opposition deputies, Andrija Mandic, Milan Knezevic and Milun Zogovic, were brought before prosecutors in Montenegro on Friday to be charged over an incident in the country's parliament before a vote on the new law on religion.

Democratic Front MPs caused an incident in an effort to prevent the law from being passed. They ran into fights with members of the ruling coalition, chased them with bottles, glasses, tossed their microphones and tried to throw a kind of smoke bomb into the plenary.

"Bishop and some of worshipers were knocked to the ground and beaten with batons and feet. Two believers were also injured trying to protect him. One had a broken hip and another a collarbone and they were hospitalized at the Pljevlja hospital", it is said in the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral.

The Montenegrin parliament passed the controversial Freedom of Religious Law amid chaotic scenes on Friday, despite fierce objections from the Serbian Orthodox Church, its supporters and pro-Serbian opposition parties.

A legislative committee session is being held today in the building, on which the Government's Law on freedom of religion is on the agenda.
The Legislative Committee of the Montenegrin Parliament endorsed the majority vote by the government's Law on religious freedom.