Human Rights Action condemns the yesterday’s attack on two gay persons in Podgorica. We believe, based on the information we received from colleagues in the LGBT Forum Progress about the incident, that they were attacked because of their sexual orientation. This attack is encouraged by the climate of impunity for hate crimes committed so far against members of the LGBT community.
We appeal to Mr. Veselin Vučković, the Acting Supreme State Prosecutor, to inform the public about the prosecution of yesterday’s attack, and to answer the following questions:
1) is it true that the State Prosecutor’s Office did not initiate any criminal proceedings against the hooligans who attempted to lynch the participants of the Pride Parade in Budva?
2) is it true that the State Prosecutor’s Office did not initiate any criminal proceedings against hooligans who destroyed property and stoned police officers who were securing the Pride Parade goers in Podgorica?
3) if the above is true, why did the State Prosecutor’s Office decide to initiate only misdemeanour proceedings in relation to these cases?
4) how many complaints of threats and other endangering of safety of LGBT persons were prosecuted and in what manner – with what qualification?
5) what is your comment on the decision by Canadian government to grant asylum to Zdravko Cimbaljevic, a human rights activist and a homosexual, based on their assessment that Montenegrin authorities were not capable of properly prosecuting numerous threats he was exposed to?
6) what efforts were made by the State Prosecutor’s Office to apply and promote the amendments to the Criminal Code from 2013, which qualified hate propaganda on the basis of sexual orientation as a criminal offense, and introduced stricter punishment for crimes committed out of hate on the basis of sexual orientation?
It is unacceptable that LGBT people in Montenegro, a European country that seeks to improve the rule of law, live as second-class citizens, in fear of open manifestation of hatred and violence against them from which the state fails to protect them. It is a high time for the State Prosecutor’s Office to make serious and legitimate efforts in preventing hate crimes.
