By Peace Hero Museum Vienna
Srđa Popović is a political activist from Serbia, born in Belgrade in 1973. Popović was one of the founders of the non-violent student movement Otpor that dismissed Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosovic.
The Otpor was a student-led movement established in 1998, that used non-violent actions such as awareness campaigns, protests and disobedience resistance against the policies of the Serbian government. In late 1998, students started a demonstration with the slogan “We are paving the way.” Despite government restrictions, thousands of students mobilized and walked 83 km in distance between Belgrade and Novi Sad. Otpor has also organized campaigns for Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. It became a political party in 2003. The movement attracted international attention and media coverage, and succeeded in dismissing the president in 2000. After this time, Popović left Otpor and served as a member of the Serbian National Assembly from 2000 to 2003.
In 2003, Popović founded the Centre for Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS), which works to promote human rights and democracy though non-violent actions. The organization has been involved with pro-democracy activities in more than 50 countries, including Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma, Venezuela, Ukraine, Georgia, Palestine, Western Sahara, West Papua, Eritrea, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Tonga, Tunisia and Egypt. It provides training and workshops, books, and specialized course for activists.
In 2006, Popović, along with his two colleagues, published a book called Nonviolent Struggle: 50 Crucial Points. The members of CANVAS organize presentations and hold workshops at different universities around the world, including Harvard (Kennedy School of Law), the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, Rutgers, Colorado College and Georgetown University.
Popović has delivered several speeches at international conferences, including TEDxKrakow, where his talk discussed “How to Topple a Dictator” through the phenomenon of “people power” in 2001. He spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum, as well as the San Francisco Freedom Forum, which was organized by the Human Rights Foundation.
Srđa Popović has received several awards, including the Paul Lauitzen Award for Human Rights in 2010, and the Jean Mayers Award in 2016, awarded by Tufts University. He was listed as one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” of 2011 by Foreign Policy, and was included among the “50 people who will change the world” by The Wired, and became one of the Young Global Leaders for 2013 by the World Economic Forum.