Šahman: Proposed Law on Veteran and Disability Protection Discriminatory Towards Victims of the Štrpci Crime!

(Patria) - President of the Bosniak Democratic Movement (BDP) Sead Šahman reminded on his Facebook profile that February 27 this year will mark 32 years since the crime in Štrpci.

He stated that Bosniak representatives from the Government will again lay wreaths this year in the "Pobrežje" park in Podgorica or at the "Sat života" memorial in Bijelo Polje, and that they will fall silent about this crime again until next February, in which 20 innocent people were killed in 1993.

Šahman said that at the end of last year, the Government of Montenegro, at an electronic session, adopted a proposal for the Law on Veteran and Disability Protection, without a public hearing, at the proposal of the competent Ministry of Social Welfare, Family Care and Demography.

“Although at the end of 2023, as a then MP and vice-president of the ruling party with a Bosniak prefix, he advocated for what were the proposals of the NGOs 'Štrpci - Against Forgetting' & 'Action for Human Rights', Damir Gutić, in the role of the competent minister, proposed something completely different,” Šahman stated in his post on Facebook.

The victims of Štrpci will not be able to exercise rights under this proposed legal solution because they have "outgrown" the law, which in this format stipulates that rights can only be used up to the age of 27 and under the condition that the children are in education.

“The youngest child of the Štrpci victims is now 35 years old and, according to this legal solution, will not be able to exercise any right. The total number of people who would exercise the right without an age limit is 25 people, and they should not represent a burden for the state,” explained the president of BDP.

He concluded that such a text of the law is discriminatory and should not pass the parliamentary procedure to which it was submitted by the executive branch.