By The Media Union of Montenegro (TUMM) welcomes the adoption of the Decision establishing the Intersectoral Working Group for the creation of a journalist safety mechanism, by which the Government of Montenegro has taken the first concrete step toward the implementation of the Protocol on the Protection of Journalists.
As envisaged, the Working Group will focus on analysing the existing institutional and legal framework and proposing concrete solutions for a future national mechanism. It is particularly important that, already in the initial phase, the Working Group will assume the basic functions of the mechanism, such as monitoring ongoing cases and providing free legal and psychological support to media workers.
In this way, the Protocol does not remain at the level of declarative support, but is implemented in practice through operational mechanisms. We recall that the Protocol was signed on 10 October by representatives of the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office, the ministries of culture and media, internal affairs, and justice, the Media Union of Montenegro, Radio and Television of Montenegro, the Association of Local Public Broadcasters, Vijesti television and newspaper, Monitor, and the Analitika portal.
The Working Group is established for a period of one year and includes representatives of the General Secretariat of the Government of Montenegro, the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and representatives of the media community, who will be proposed by the Media Union of Montenegro as the initiator of the mechanism’s establishment.
We expect that all stakeholders will contribute in the initial phase in order to ensure a swift and effective response by all involved, as well as to identify an adequate institutional framework for the functioning of the future mechanism. We also recall that fulfilling this obligation—namely, the creation of an effective national mechanism for the protection of journalists—is fully in line with the most recent recommendations issued to Montenegro by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in May of this year.
