PODGORICA, 09.12.2025 – The Basic State Prosecutor’s Office (ODT) in Pljevlja has opened a case against the head of the municipality, Dario Vraneš (New Serb Democracy), following last week’s offensive comment he directed at the Executive Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG), Milka Tadić Mijović. She gave a statement to the police yesterday, while Vraneš did so on Friday.
The ODT in Pljevlja told Vijesti that the head of the office, Sanja Golubović, had issued an oral order instructing the police to collect information from both Tadić Mijović and Vraneš, after which she will determine whether his message contains elements of a criminal offence or a misdemeanor.
Last week, commenting on Tadić Mijović’s statement to Vijesti regarding his latest nationalist outburst, Vraneš posted on Instagram — quoting Njegoš and adding several emojis — “Tell us, old mother, art thou witch? – Witch I am: why should I hide.”
In her statement given to the Podgorica Security Department, Tadić Mijović said that Vraneš’s Instagram post referred to the article published in Vijesti titled “New Nationalist Provocations by Dario Vraneš.”
“In that article, I commented on Mr. Vraneš’s nationalist positions, emphasizing that I hope our children have learned lessons from the past and that they will choose Europe over following Vraneš to Prizren,” she told the police, adding that she expressed similar views on the TV Vijesti programme Načisto, as she has “throughout her decades-long journalistic and public engagement opposed all forms of nationalism.”
She stated that Vraneš’s comment on Instagram evoked memories of the darkest periods of the 1990s and 2000s, when she and many of her colleagues were subjected to insults, attacks, and pressure because of their anti-nationalist stance, as well as for reporting on issues related to the rule of law, corruption, and crime.
Tadić Mijović stressed that Vraneš’s comment triggered a wave of extremely abusive remarks directed at her on various online portals, where she was called the most derogatory names and accused of the most outrageous things — including claims that she works for foreign intelligence services, that she “danced on tables for (Milo) Đukanović,” and that she is “a nationalist wrapped in a civic cloak,” among others.
“They also repeated that I am a witch, and similar things. And witches, of course, are to be burned. So the harshest narratives once spread by Đukanović’s propaganda are now reappearing, only in a more brutal form,” she said, pointing out that there is, however, one key difference: during the rule of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), such insults came from paid propagandists, but never — despite criticism — from any government official.
“The difference now is that high-ranking officials of the current administration can drag you through the mud and throw you into this online arena, where you are then attacked by bots and followers of the ruling group,” she said.
Tadić Mijović added that Vraneš’s comment, along with many others that followed in the media and on social networks, has deeply affected her.
“I feel very distressed because I see that hate speech has become a weapon used by the officials of New Serb Democracy (NSD) to target those who do not share their views, to encourage hatred, division, and violence — and their critics become legitimate targets,” Tadić Mijović told the police.
Source: Vijesti