PODGORICA, Montenegro — Hundreds protested in Montenegro on Wednesday after unknown assailants shot and wounded a prominent crime and corruption reporter, the latest attack on journalists in the small Balkan country that is seeking EU membership.
Carrying banners reading “Stop violence,” or “For a life without fear,” the protesters demanded that authorities find the assailants who opened fire late Tuesday on Olivera Lakic, who works for the independent Vijesti daily.
Lakic, 49, was shot in the leg outside her home in Podgorica, the capital. She remains in a hospital after the attack, which has drawn responses from the U.S. and European Union.
Protesters who gathered outside the government building in Podgorica accused authorities of doing little to solve a series of attack on journalists in recent years. Those included another attack on Lakic six years ago and a bomb explosion outside another crime reporter’s home last month.
Zeljko Ivanovic, general manager of Vijesti, said there have been a total of 25 attacks on the paper’s journalists and offices. The daily is known for its independent and critical journalism.
“They [government] created an atmosphere in which there are state enemies and traitors,” said Ivanovic. “Can this society survive without a single free media, journalist or intellectual?”
Olivera Ivanovic, a fellow journalist from the national TV Montenegro, said the attack “is not just a message to her, it’s a message to the entire media community.”
A man who beat Lakic six years ago was briefly jailed, and she had police protection for a while. But Ivanovic said those behind the attack have not been named.
Lakic has written about alleged murky businesses involving top state officials and their families. Montenegro’s long-ruling Democratic Party of Socialists have faced repeated accusations of corruption and crime links, which they deny.