Labeling You a Drug Addict Is a Sign They’re Afraid of You

Written by: Boban Batrićević

Following the protest in front of Vila Gorica against the illegal awarding of the 13th July Prize, the deep Serbian state in Montenegro, via its sewer outlet IN4S (the same outlet that celebrates war criminal Ratko Mladić’s birthday), has launched a campaign against director Danilo Marunović. Marunović, a member of the prize jury who insisted the law be upheld, was also one of the protest’s leading organizers three days ago.

Since that night, the deep Serbian state and its media-police apparatus have been relentlessly targeting Marunović. He has been dehumanized in a series of attacks, with articles branding him a drug addict, a smear tactic strikingly reminiscent of what Milošević and Šešelj once used against Čedomir Jovanović. These anonymous articles, which violate every standard of journalistic ethics and legality, are being churned out by the same propaganda dump. To make matters worse, Marunović was personally insulted by Dragan Koprivica, a man who, in the 1990s, served as Milošević’s hatchet man in purging non-loyal staff from the University of Belgrade.

This amateur went so far as to call Marunović a drug addict live on air, something never before witnessed on Montenegrin television. We’ve seen fierce debates and sharp exchanges, but never a public collapse in standards this severe.

This has to stop. I call on the Government of Montenegro to defend Danilo Marunović’s dignity and take immediate action. They already disgraced themselves once by silently allowing him to be harassed by the Serbian secret police. Now, they’re standing by as the media-police sewer machine slanders him without consequence. It’s time they stepped out of their fetid comfort zones and finally stood up for human rights and Danilo Marunović’s dignity.

I also call on the so-called Minister of Culture, Tamara Vujović, who will undoubtedly see this in tomorrow’s press clippings, to stop hiding behind cheap, pathetic excuses like “I didn’t see it” or “I wasn’t aware”. Minister, this man has been called a junkie by illegal outlets for days and then had the same filth hurled at him live on national television. What happens if someone attacks him in the street? You must protect him. Your conscience demands it, even if Boris Rem and his brownshirt cronies take issue. At the very least, you’ll sleep at night.

I also call on the Ministry for Human Rights to finally speak out. That ministry doesn’t exist just to defend the rights of the minister’s ethnic group.

And I call on Montenegro’s ever-awkward president, Jakov Milatović, to speak out in defense of the dignity of our director and artist. Now that he’s finally repainted the fence of the residence and scrubbed off the moss, maybe he’s also opened his eyes.

But even if none of the above lift a finger, Danilo will never stand alone, because there have always been more of us “junkies” than there have been Chetniks. And there will be more still.

P.S. Say no to drugs, say no to Chetniks!