The number of citizens declaring themselves as Muslims in Montenegro has decreased due to pressures and an ethnic engineering campaign, the Party of Montenegrin Muslims (PCM) has announced.
According to the most recent census data, there are 1.63 per cent of Muslims in Montenegro, while there were 3.31 per cent of them in the 2011 census.
According to the press release from PCM, the Bosniak Party’s (BS) press release regarding the census results favors the assimilation of Muslims and celebrates the increase in the number of Bosniaks.
“The census results also indicate that 0.8 per cent of Muslims were probably forced to declare themselves as Bosniaks”, the press release claims.
The PCM stated that this is a direct result of a policy of imposing the Bosniak identity as dominant, while neglecting the Muslim ethnic community.
According to them, the assimilation of this population is still ongoing and directly violates the Article 79 of the Constitution of Montenegro.