{"id":4478,"date":"2021-01-02T17:28:40","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T17:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=145525"},"modified":"2021-01-02T17:28:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T17:28:40","slug":"montenegros-president-rejects-changes-to-controversial-religion-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/02\/montenegros-president-rejects-changes-to-controversial-religion-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Montenegro’s President Rejects Changes To Controversial Religion Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Montenegrin President Milo Dukanovic has refused to approve amendments to a controversial law on religion<\/a><\/strong> that has been sharply criticized by ethnic Serbs and the Serbian Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n

Dukanovic sent the amendments back to parliament along with six other laws passed by the ruling coalition, his office said on January 2.<\/p>\n

A total of 41 deputies of the ruling coalition, which is composed of pro-Serb parties and is closely aligned with the Serbian Orthodox Church, in the 81-seat legislature backed amendments to the Law on Freedom of Religion in a vote on December 29 that was boycotted by the opposition.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s office claimed it was unclear if the required number of lawmakers had been present in parliament during the vote.<\/p>\n

Dukanovic heads the long-ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), which is now in opposition.<\/p>\n

If lawmakers vote for the amendments again, the president is obliged to sign them.<\/p>\n

Under Montenegro’s religion law adopted a year ago, religious communities must prove property ownership from before 1918.<\/p>\n

That is the year when predominantly Orthodox Christian Montenegro joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes — and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church was subsumed by the Serbian Orthodox Church, losing all of its property in the process.<\/p>\n

The Serbian Orthodox Church, its supporters, and pro-Serbian parties claimed the law could enable the Montenegrin government to impound church property, though officials deny that they intend to do this.<\/p>\n

The new government — which came to power after elections in August — said it would rewrite the law to ensure the properties stay in the hands of church, which is based in neighboring Serbia.<\/p>\n

Serbia and Montenegro were part of a federation until 2006, when Montenegro declared its independence.<\/p>\n

Montenegro is a member of NATO and aspires to join the European Union.<\/p>\n

With reporting by dpa<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montenegrin President Milo Dukanovic has refused to approve amendments to a controversial law on religion that has been sharply criticized by ethnic Serbs and the Serbian Orthodox Church.\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,4,23,75,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4479,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478\/revisions\/4479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}