Albanians in Montenegro

Representatives of the ethnic Albanian-majority Tuzi municipality and the Albanian diaspora unveiled a monument on Sunday to Dede Gjon Luli, an Albanian nationalist figure and guerrilla leader, in front of his former home in the village of Bardhaj, which has been turned into a museum.

Faik Nika, the president of the Albanian National Council, said on Friday that the Albanian government will give financial support for the first time to assist the running of his organisation and its office in the municipality of Plav.

Nika told Montenegrin media the Albanian government has recently made three very important decisions for the Albanian community in Montenegro.

Starting this week, Ethnic Albanians from Montenegro and North Macedonia now have the same access to jobs in Albania as locals, according to a decision made by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama's cabinet, which was made public on Monday.

Under an agreement with former Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic's party to secure a majority in parliament to form a new government, the country's ethnic Albanian coalition has succeeded in securing a number of political concessions it has been demanding over the past ten years and which the authorities have continuously avoided implementing.

Danaj on Sunday published an open letter to Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic which said that Albanians would regain their rightful territory in Montenegro "peacefully".

Two members of the Montenegrin parliament, Genci Nimanbegu and Nik Djeljosaj, on Wednesday said that they and leaders of ethnic Albanian parties in the country were filing charges of hate speech against Informer's editor-in-chief, Novak Uskokovic, as well as two journalists over the "insulting articles on Albanians in Montenegro". 

Montenegrin students fight after Belgrade game

PODGORICA -- Students of a high school in Tuzi near Podgorica were on Wednesday involved in a fight over the abandoned Serbia-Albania football game.

Ethnic Albanian parties in Montenegro protested on Tuesday against the "inadequate curriculum" their children are offered in schools in Montenegro.

They said that teaching programs in schools are not adapted to the needs of the community as the textbooks are only translations into Albanian of books written in the Montenegrin language.

The protest was organised by Albanian opposition parties, the Democratic Forum for Integration and the Democratic Alliance.

They claim that the government has been "abusing and discriminating against" local Albanians in Tuzi, where they form the majority community.

Montenegro is to get a new 23rd municipality after parliament verified a government decision adopted last December to grant municipal status to Gusinje.

The small town in northern Montenegro, near Albania, which has only around 2,000 inhabitants but a large diaspora in the US, is mainly home to ethnic Bosniaks and Albanians.