Reporting to the Parliament, Security Minister Dragan Mektic today said the security situation in the country is complicated and security agencies are closely monitoring several extremist groups.

“These groups, depending of their activities, can be divided into those promoting extreme religious, nationalistic, unitarist and separatist views and one of them shows signs of readiness for violent actions,” Mektic said.  

Some of those groups are ideologically connected to similar organizations and criminal organizations in the region, he said.  

Mektic said the activities of these groups range from public appearances of their members, who use hate speech in public places or via certain Internet pages and other media, to graffiti and posters with insulting and extreme content.  

Those groups “express, promote, spread and incite national, religious and racist hatred and intolerance, disguised as patriotism,” Mektic said.  

They allegedly target the most vulnerable parts of the population: returnees, refugees and religious minorities in areas dominated by another religion.  

“They used violent extremism in attacks on gravestones, religious objects as well as against believers during religious ceremonies in those objects before. Their goal is to spread fear among the targeted groups,” Mektic said.  

The Minister gave a short outline of the situation and promised to submit a detailed report in written form.