Montenegro Fines Turk for Busting Tough Flag Laws

A Turkish national who flew his country’s flag at a construction site on the coast is the latest to fall fall of the country’s strict rules on displaying flags.

Turkish citizen fined because of flag. Photo: EPA

A court in Montenegro has fined a Turkish citizen 300 euros for displaying the Turkish flag without permission at a construction site in the coastal resort of Budva.

Police took him to court for violating public order and peace on Wednesday. Judge Katarina Vujacic Vuksanovic fined the employee of the Karadag construction company 300 euros.

The unnamed Turkish national fell foul of Montenegro’s tough rules on flying flags, which stipulate fines of 100 to 500 euros for publicly displaying the flag of another country without a permit.

Displaying other flags is not punishable if they are symbols of national minorities. In December, parliament amended the National Symbols Act to allow displays of national minority symbols in municipalities with minority communities. “Where members of the minority community make up more than 5 per cent of the population, on the day of the national minority holiday, the flag can be displayed on municipal and state institutions,” the changed law says. Before the law was changed, Montenegro did not totally forbid ethnic minorities from displaying their own national symbols, but required that they also display the Montenegrin flag alongside them.

The Turkish national is not the first person to be fined for breaking the country’s laws on flying flags.

On February 24, a court in Bijelo Polje fined Danko Femic 300 euros for displaying a Serbian flag on his car.

In November 2019, police expelled an Albanian national displaying an Albanian flag at a festival in the mainly ethnic Albanian municipality of Ulcinj. He was also fined 300 euros.

In August that year, the Ministry of Culture also announced charges against the organisers of a concert near the mainly ethnic Albanian-populated town of Tuzi over the use of the Albanian national flag.

A group of Albanian tourists was fined 230 euros for waving an Albanian flag in the resort of Budva.

Montenegro is a multi-ethnic state and is unusual in having no one community that makes up over half of its population. About 45 per cent of its population of around 630,000 people identify as Montenegrins, about 29 per cent as Serbs, about 11 per cent as Bosniaks or Muslims and 5 per cent as Albanians.