"Police cannot guarantee absolute security to citizens who come to Cetinje on Sunday"

Photo: gov.me/S.Matic

The security assessment regarding the upcoming events in Cetinje is not favorable, Minister of Interior of Montenegro Sergej Sekulovic said today and stressed that the essential question is whether that assessment is so unfavorable as to ban gatherings, or if the authorities will allow citizens to use their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

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Sekulovic says that bans can be a short-term solution, but also that they mean stifling of freedoms.

He claims that the Ministry of the Interior is acting completely impartially, although, as he said, they are under pressure and are asked to be biased.

During a working breakfast with journalists, Sekulovic said that the police cannot guarantee absolute security to any citizen or journalist who will be in Cetinje on September 5, because, if they were do that, they would have to provide a police officer for each citizen.

Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral of the Serbian Orthodox Church Joanikije is set to be enthroned in Cetinje on Sunday.

Sekulovic also said that a gathering has been registered for September 3, but not for September 5.

The director of the Police Administration, Zoran Brdjanin, explained that the police are not there to predict events and that the sense of security is individual.

"It's not a war, it's not a state of emergency, we guarantee people security in objective circumstances," he said, Podgorica based daily Vijesti reported.

Brdjanin said that the question of whether security can be guaranteed on that day should also be asked of the media, because, according to him, he saw that significant public disturbance is not being caused by the events themselves, but by the way they are interpreted in the media.

"Imagine if all media from today until September 6 published blank pages. Would that cause any reaction? What are you planning? What is your editorial concept? Will there still be articles that will calm or raise tensions? Did you hold any meetings? Was there any initiative for all of you to meet, embrace and go to Cetinje together, and show that each of you came to express some conviction of theirs," the director of the Police Administration asked.

State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior Zoran Miljanic said that the police in Cetinje will be the guarantor of peace for all citizens, regardless of their religious or party affiliation.

He also said that all politicians who come to Cetinje uninvited on September 5, no matter where they gather, bear a special responsibility.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)