The public opinion survey in Montenegro ”Attitudes on Torture“ was carried out in cooperation with the Ipsos Strategic Marketing agency within the project ”Monitoring Respect for Human Rights in Closed Institutions in Montenegro” implemented by Human Rights Action (HRA) and partner organisations: Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Women’s Safe House, and Centre for Antidiscrimination “EQUISTA”. The project is financially supported by the European Union and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The survey and part of its methodology are complementary with the survey ”World Public Opinion on Torture” conducted in 19 countries in 2008 within a project WorldPublicOpinion.Org managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, USA.

The main findings of the survey showed that 79% of Montenegrin citizens believe that any kind of torture should be prohibited, while 18% of the population support the attitude that terrorists present such an extreme threat that governments should be allowed to apply a certain degree of torture to search for information that can save lives of others. This result showed that attitude of Montenegrin citizens is closest to the attitude of citizens of France, Britain and Spain, who in 82% opted for total prohibition of torture, and that Montenegrin citizens are much stronger in belief that torture should be absolutely prohibited than citizens of the United States of America (79%:53%) or Russia (79%:49%).

The majority of citizens (60%) agree partially or fully with the statement that the abuse is present in prisons and police stations in Montenegro but rarely reported due to fear of retaliation, while a quarter of total population fully agrees with this statement.

All results and conclusions of the survey can be downloaded here.