«Отпор!»: От студенческого протеста к политической партии

Former Serbian civic movement and liberal political party

Otpor (, , stylized as Otpor!) was a political organization in Serbia (then part of FR Yugoslavia) from 1998 until 2004. In its initial period from 1998 to 2000, Otpor began as a civic protest group, eventually turning into a movement, which adopted the Narodni pokret (the People's Movement) title, against the policies of the Serbian authorities under the influence of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević. Following Milošević's overthrow in October 2000, Otpor became a political watchdog organization monitoring the activities of the post Milošević period of the DOS coalition. Finally, during fall 2003, Otpor briefly became a political party which, due to its failure to pass the 5% threshold needed to get any seats in the Serbian parliament, soon merged with another party. Founded and best known as an organization employing nonviolent struggle as a course of action against the Milošević controlled Serbian authorities, Otpor grew into a civic youth movement whose activity culminated on 5 October 2000 with Milošević's overthrow. In the course of a two year nonviolent struggle against Milošević, Otpor spread across Serbia, attracting in its heyday more than 70,000 supporters who were credited for their role in the 5 October overthrow. After the overthrow, Otpor launched campaigns to hold the new government accountable, pressing for democratic reforms and fighting corruption, as well as insisting on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) at the Hague. Soon after the 2003 elections, Otpor merged into the Democratic Party (DS).

Otpor was formed in Belgrade on 10 October 1998 in response to a controversial piece of legislation in Serbia – the university law – introduced earlier that year by the Serbian government under Prime Minister Mirko Marjanović. Also, days before Otpor got announced, the government introduced a decree (uredba) outlining special measures in the wake of the ongoing NATO bombing threat. Citing the decree, on 14 October 1998, the government's Ministry of Information headed by Aleksandar Vučić banned the publishing of Dnevni telegraf, Danas, and Naša borba, three Belgrade dailies which were critical of the government to varying degrees. The newly formed group named Otpor mostly consisted of the Demokratska omladina (Democratic Party's youth wing) members, activists of the various NGOs that operated in Serbia, and students from the two public universities in Belgrade – University of Belgrade and University of Arts. It quickly grew from a small group into a network of similarly politically minded young people, many of whom were already veterans of anti Milošević demonstrations such as the 1996 97 protests and the 9 March 1991 protest. With the political opposition in Serbia in disarray, Otpor decided to build a broad political movement rather than a traditional NGO or political party. Frustrated with opposition leaders protecting their narrow personal and party interests, which often degenerated into infighting, the group also decided that "it would have no leaders". Early on, Otpor defined its objectives and methods, including an account of what it saw as the main problems of the country, in the "Declaration of the Future of Serbia." The declaration was signed and supported by all prominent student organizations in Serbia. An advisory body was set up and its members became the main promoters of the declaration. Initially, Otpor's activities were limited to the University of Belgrade. In an effort to gather new nonpartisan energy, not to mention making it harder for state media to discredit and smear them as just another opposition political group, Otpor avoided publicizing its ties to the Democratic Party (DS) even though the two organizations held similar political goals and shared many of the same members. Early on they agreed the organization's symbol to be the clenched fist. Young designer Nenad "Duda" Petrović created the logo.

The authorities' immediate reaction to the appearance of Otpor was extremely heavy handed, even before the movement held any public gatherings. In the early morning hours of Wednesday, 4 November 1998, four students – 22 year old Teodora Tabački (enrolled at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy), Marina Glišić (22, Faculty of Philosophy), Dragana Milinković (22, Faculty of Philology), and Nikola Vasiljević (19, University of Arts' FDU) – were arrested for stencil spraying the clenched fist symbol on the UofB's Faculty of Mathematics building facade. Later that same day, after reportedly being intimidated into signing a pre typed, joint statement of guilt, the four students were taken before a misdemeanor judge who handed them a sentence of 10 days in prison. In his explanation of the sentence, judge Željko Muniža cited that "with their brazen and reckless behaviour, the four students have endangered the citizens' calm and disturbed the public order." On 5 November, the students' legal representatives – Nikola Barović, Branko Pavlović, and Dušan Stojković – appealed the respective sentences citing "improper use of both the misdemeanor process and the misdemeanor law as well as the scandalous subsequent sanction." One day later, the misdemeanor council rejected the appeal as baseless. The case generated some public reaction with the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Electrical Engineering professor and Otpor member Srbijanka Turajlić calling the sentences "inappropriate" and further scolding the University of Belgrade rector Jagoš Purić as well as University of Arts rector Radmila Bakočević for "not publicly reacting to their own students being rounded up on the street and hauled off to jail".