The representatives of the European Union, the Council of Europe and the institutions of Montenegro gathered on 13 October for the steering committee meeting of the action “Promotion of diversity and equality in Montenegro”, with the aim to discuss achievements of the action over the last 12 months, and plan activities ahead.

The focus of the discussion was on how to advance in reforming the national framework on combating discrimination and hate speech/hate crime, and ensure laws are fully implemented. Mirjana Vlahovic, from the Ministry of Justice, Human and Minority Rights, noted the engagement on amending the law on anti-discrimination, as well as to start working on the new gender identity legislation. The Ombudsperson of Montenegro, Sinisa Bjekovic, insisted on the importance of working to ensure bias motives in relation to hatred are included in the Criminal Code, and the awareness of courts on these topics.

Civil society and police beneficiaries presented the activities run in the framework of the action, to bring awareness on equality and non-discrimination at societal level: by training a pool of police officers on combating hate crime based on sexual orientation and gender identity grounds; to ensure youngsters from majority and minority communities are sensitised on recognising and respond to hate speech and anti-gypsyism, especially in social media; to rase awareness on rights of LGBTI persons through the activities around the pride and IDAHOT week.

The action will continue to work on building capacities of institutions, but even more to bring to the public debate issues related to hate speech and its poisoning role for societies, notably by the rolling of the ‘Block the hatred. Share the love!’ campaign at local level.

The action on “Promotion of diversity and equality in Montenegro” is part of the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.