"The communication that has reached the public shows the way of thinking and acting of a system that, instead of working in the interests of citizens, monitored political dissenters, organized surveillance, and exchanged information about people it considered opponents," Marković said.
He points out that a part of the correspondence from September 2020, immediately after the parliamentary elections, in which high-ranking officials at the time comment on the negotiations on the formation of a new government is particularly worrying.
The messages, he says, mention monitoring and photographing people participating in political meetings, as well as sending people into the field to film them.
"Such allegations show the extent to which political struggle has been transformed into a system of control, surveillance and pressure. What is even more serious is that many believe that these methods have not disappeared even today, they have just taken a different form through anonymous bot accounts, targeting via social networks and certain media, as well as the placement of private communications with the aim of discrediting and disciplining dissenters," claims Marković.
It says that threatening citizens' privacy, politically motivated surveillance, and targeting people cannot be a hallmark of a democratic society.
"Instead of facing responsibility for such actions, the public is today witnessing attempts to relativize everything that has been done behind the scenes of power for years," said the PES official.
He adds that the question remains how many people were under surveillance and how much state and parapolitical structures were involved in activities that, as he states, have nothing to do with the legal work of institutions.
"At the same time, it is increasingly obvious that a kind of hybrid war is still being waged today against certain politicians, precisely those who have decided to openly and courageously deal with the structures and dangers that have remained behind the long-standing octopus of power. The limbs of that system are still present in various spheres of society and do not stop with their attempts to destabilize the state, obstruct reforms and collapse everything that the current Government and parliamentary majority are trying to implement. With such actions, they are trying to slow down Montenegro's European path, but fortunately such attempts can no longer succeed, because citizens clearly see and condemn their intentions and methods by which they try to preserve influence and destabilize society," concluded Marković.
