Troll of the Month: Dragan Koprivica and Mitar Šušić

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkan region.

TV Prva, a commercial television channel in Montenegro, invited guests Dragan Koprivica, a professor at the University of Montenegro’s Faculty of Philology, and Mitar Šušić, a lawyer and councillor in the Podgorica City Assembly who heads the New Serbian Democracy caucus, to its morning show.

The topic of the conversation was the CGO publication (Centre for Civic Education) A Guide to LGBTIQ+ Topics for Primary and Secondary School Teachers.

The guide’s purpose is to help teachers recognise and prevent homophobic peer violence, protect students, and respond responsibly to discrimination. However, instead of addressing this, both guests instead used this opportunity to spread anti-LGBTQI+ narratives and misinformation.

They went on to make false, discriminatory, homophobic, and manipulative claims, completely misrepresenting the guide. They even went as far as linking LGBTIQ+ topics to paedophilia, necrophilia, and “moral decay,”.  

Making these kinds of accusations is very harmful. False conspiracy narratives that only serve to spread hatred towards the community but also simultaneously encourage stigma and intolerance. As noted by the Centre for Civic Education, the guide is strictly protective and pedagogical; its purpose is to empower and equip schools to recognise and respond to violence and homophobia.

By representing this guide as a type of ‘moral decay’, this only further spreads anti-LGBTIQ+ narratives and creates fears around the discussion of suchimportant topics. Preventing homophobia and violence in school is extremely important and a topic such as that should be discussed in a responsible and professional manner, rather than using the opportunity to further spread hate, disinformation and discrimination.

The media have a responsibility to do better. They should not be providing the platform and airtime to guests who use the space to spread discrimination and homophobia. Rather, they should ensure to invite guests who talk about important subjects with a tone of sensitivity and seriousness, emphasising the importance of such guides for schools and teachers to ensure they are equipped and prepared to prevent and respond to violence, homophobia and hate in the classrooms.

All children and individuals need protection, and no person should feel excluded, bullied or stigmatised because of their sexual orientation. The media should ensure to use their platform and reach to teach and educate the public on important topics such as LGBTIQ+ rights.