Centre for Civic Education (CCE) will qualitatively and quantitatively follow the media campaign for presidential elections which will be conducted in April 2018. The Project ‘SPINoFACT 2 – Political Advertising between Spin and Facts‘ is a continuation of the same-named pilot project conducted during November and December 2017 for local elections in Mojkovac, Petnjica and Cetinje, which was then supported by the Kingdom of Netherlands.

Monitoring will encompass the period from 15 March to 15 April 2018, and the research will include potential candidates, candidates who are in the process of acquiring signatures and confirmed presidential candidates. After the deadline for submission of presidential candidacies, the research will solely focus on official candidates and their media presentation.

The research will encompass informational and out-informational shows of televisions – RTCG 1, Vijesti, Pink M and Prva; reporting of daily newspapers – Vijesti, Dan, Pobjeda, Dnevne novine and Sloboda, as well as portals – Cafe del Montenegro (CdM), Analitika, Vijesti, RTCG, Antena M, Standard, Fosmedia, IN4S. »

Centre for Civic Education (CCE) has this year as well, now already traditionally, been a host to American participants of prestigious Marshall Memorial Fellowship programme in Montenegro from 12 to 16 March 2018.

Montenegro, its potentials and challenges have been a subject of interest of participants of the programme who have, during their stay in Montenegro, got acquainted with its history, familiarised themselves with culture and contemporary cultural expressions, while in their focus was informing and understanding of the current socio-political context and socio-economic situation, especially in regards to rule of law, influence that membership in NATO has, and activities on the path to the EU.

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Today, the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) signed contracts with civil society organizations (CSOs) that were awarded grants through the first Call for the support of projects of these organizations in Montenegro in 2018 within project “Let’s put corruption into museum!” Within this Call, four CSO projects have been supported in total amount of EUR 37,896, and in the forthcoming period they will aim to contribute to the inclusion of civil society in the implementation of anticorruption policies and practices.

The following projects were supported:

• Our PLACE (PLAnning the Cementing), implemented by Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro in cooperation with NGO KANA – Who if not architect;
• Profession above politics! implemented by Union of Doctors in cooperation with Medical Chamber of Montenegro;
• Corruption on zero option, implemented by Centre for Security, Sociology and Criminology Research “Defendology” in cooperation with Centre for Political Education and portal Onogošt;
• Responsibly for Ulcinj, implemented by Monitoring group Ulcinj – MogUL.

At the occasion of signing contracts, Daliborka Uljarević, CCE Executive Director, stated that “CCE continues to expand the network of organizations that will contribute, through different thematic frameworks and practices, to raising public awareness of the harmful consequences of corruption, but also to encourage local communities and different publics to effectively response to corruption“. She stressed that “corruption in Montenegro is systemic problem and as it requires more effective action of institutions, so requires a more organized civil society focus.”

Slavko Milić, Executive Director of the Centre for Security, Sociological and Criminal Research “Defendology”, said that “this grant will help, through the partnership and support of the CCE, through project activities to make corruption cases as visible as possible and to develop sustainable defense mechanisms against corruption “.

Milena Popovic – Samardzic, Executive director of the Union of Doctors, expressed hope that “we will be able to point to the extent to which anomalies such as systemic corruption, high-level corruption, are detrimental to one society“, with the following explanation: “Our objective is to point out all the levels in which corruption is or may be represented not only at the level physician-patient, but also at the level of public procurement, recruitment, awarding of specialization, appointment of directors etc.”

Milka Tadic – Mijovic, President of the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro, pointed out particularly: “our common goal – to put corruption into the museum. Hence, we will, with partners from the KANA group, will deal with problems related to spatial planning in Podgorica and the suspicions that corruption is often behind “improper” planning.”

Executive Director of the Monitoring group MogUL Xhemal Peroviq said that “this cooperation is important because the local government in Ulcinj is one of the most closed one in Montenegro, but also because Ulcinj has had no opposition in recent years. There is a lot of dissatisfaction and complaints of citizens on corruption cases, and all this remains without sanction. ”

The project “Let’s put corruption in the museum!” aims to contribute to the decrease of the corruption at the local level and strengthening citizens’ engagement in the fight against corruption at the local level in Montenegro. The project envisages to influence the increase of transparency of the work of municipalities in Montenegro, as well as to the implementation of anti-corruption policies, through direct cooperation of CSOs, state institutions and citizens. The project “Let’s put corruption in the museum!”, the CCE conducts in cooperation with NGO Center for Monitoring and Research (CeMI), NGO Bonum from Pljevlja, NGO UL-Info from Ulcinj and NGO Za Druga from Petrovac, with associates – the Ministry of Public Administration and The Anti-corruption Agency, and it is funded by the EU Delegation to Montenegro.

Miloš Knežević, Programme associate/PR

With regard to the press release that Goran Denić and Vesna Tašić from ZMUC forwarded to certain media, using a series of unfounded constructions based on motives well known to them in a moment not chosen by accident, in order to compromise the reputation of Centre for Civic Education (CCE), we announce that everything we are going to clarify will be through competent authorities of system in Montenegro, where above-mentioned will have the opportunity, but also an obligation, to prove their allegations. We are convinced that the process will lead to one thing – determining that the given case is only an attempt to discredit the CCE, taking into consideration that facts and proofs, and thus the law, are on our side.

On the occasion of 27 February, with 25 years from the crime in Strpci, the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) reminds that families of victims are still waiting on remains of the murdered ones as well on the court justice since this crime has not been adequately resolved or processed until this day.

Crime in Strpci has occurred on the railway station of Strpci, on 27 February 1993, when members of the Army of Republic of Srpska (ARS) from Visegrad, have taken out, kidnapped and later murdered 19 passengers from the train which operated on the relation Belgrade – Bar, of which 18 were Bosniaks and one Croatian: Esad Kapetanovic, Ilijaz Licina, Fehim Bakija, Seco Softic, Rifet Husovic, Sead Djecevic, Ismet Babacic, Halil Zupcevic, Adem Alomerovic, Rasim Coric, Fikret Memetovic, Favzija Zekovic, Nijazim Kajevic, Muhedin Hanic, Safet Preljevic, Dzafer Topuzovic, Jusuf Rastoder, Zvezdan Zulicic and Tomo Buzov. Until today, the remains of only four victims have been found, while the search is ongoing for the remainder.

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