Montenegro Police Break Up Rally For Release of Priests

By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – Police in Montenegro have used tear gas against demonstrators demanding the release of eight Serbian Orthodox Church priests. The church leaders were detained for holding a religious procession despite a ban on gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Wednesday’s incidents in the western towns of Niksic and Pljevlja came a day after thousands attended the procession in Niksic without wearing face masks or keeping distance.

Local media reported that several protesters were taken into custody. Prosecutors said the captured priests face charges of violating health regulations during the virus outbreak by organizing the procession.

The detentions added to tensions between authorities of the small Adriatic state and Serbia and its church leading. Earlier Wednesday, angry supporters of the Serbian Orthodox Church blocked a regional road in northern Montenegro in protest.

And this year, the Serbian Orthodox Church organized weeks of protests against a religious law that it claimed would deprive it of its properties. Montenegrin officials have repeatedly denied the allegations.

Amid the turmoil, neighboring Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, and Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej stressed in a joint statement Wednesday that they hope the latest arrests of priests won’t spark any “unwanted unrest or clashes.”

Their statement underscored a shaky relationship between tiny Montenegro and Serbia. Montenegro, a nation of 620,000 people and a member of the NATO military alliance split from Serbia in a referendum in 2006. Serbian nationalists both in Serbia and Montenegro never recognized the separation of what they view as historic Serbian territory.

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