Milo Đukanović

War damage in Dubrovnik in 1991. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Bracodbk.

"Around 75 per cent of citizens have heard about the attacks on Dubrovnik, but half of them refuse to answer [when asked] who was to blame for the attacks," said Milos Vukanovic from the Centre for Civic Education.

At a special session on ended early on Thursday, the assembly of Bosnia's mainly Serb entity, Republika Srpska, backed vetoes proposed by Milorad Dodik on the visit of the President of Montenegro and on cooperation with the EU border agency Frontex.

Metropolitan Amfilohije, the Serbian Orthodox Church's most senior bishop in Montenegro, has called on citizens not to vote for those who supported the contested Freedom of Religion law in coming elections. 

During a Church-led protest against the law on Sunday, Bishop Amfilohije also again urged the government to withdraw the law which parliament passed late last year.

Montenegro Army Chief General Dragutin Dakic has told television Vijesti that any soldiers or officers taking part in recent protests against the new law on religion risked being forced out, as there was no place in the military for those who want to defend the Church from the law.

Mass protests of Serbian Orthodox Church clergy and their supporters continued across Montenegro at the weekend as the government and Church negotiate about the fate of the Freedom of Religion law adopted in December. 

Djukanovic, who has been running the country for three decades, spoke about the controversial law on religious freedom, which triggered mass protests of the tens of thousands of believers who regularly take to the streets, a few months before the parliamentary elections in Montenegro.

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic has told members of his ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, not to participate in the popular protests over the new religion law, led by the Serbian Orthodox Church, saying they are against Montenegro.

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.

According to the Montenegrin Police Directorate, they are charged with causing panic on Sunday, January 12th, by publishing false news regarding the event in Vila Gorica in Podgorica, without first checking the information in question.
As stated, they will be brought to the State Prosecutor with the criminal complaint in the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica.

When asked about the relationship between him and Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, he said it was in the interest of both sides that the work be done for the benefit of all.