Otpor!

Otpor! (Serbian Cyrillic: Отпор!, English: Resistance!) was a civic youth movement that existed from 1998 until 2003 in Serbia (then a federal unit within FR Yugoslavia), employing nonviolent struggle against the regime of Slobodan Milošević as their course of action. In the course of two-year nonviolent struggle against Milosevic, Otpor spread across Serbia and attracted more than 70,000 supporters. They were credited for their role in the successful overthrow of Slobodan Milošević on 5 October 2000.

Otpor had an important “watch dog” role after the October 5th, 2000 revolution. It launched campaigns to hold the new government accountable, pressing for democratic reforms and fighting corruption, as well as the unpopular cooperation with International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) at the Hague. In 2003, the group transformed into a political party, failed to pass the 5% threshold and win seats in the Serbian National assembly on elections, and soon ceased its activities by merging into the Democratic Party (DS).