Popović self-identified as a Yugoslav from an early age: "During World War II, my parents sent me away to a village near Mladenovac to stay with their friends because there was no electricity and running water in Belgrade.
Srđa Popović began his career representing commercial clients and later writers, artists and politicians that criticized the government of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Peđa Isus who together with painter Leonid Šejka started a magazine and then attempted to establish a political party under Mihajlo Mihajlov's guidance.
Though such course of action wasn't explicitly prohibited in the recently promulgated 1963 Yugoslav Constitution, any such attempts were swiftly cut down in the rigid one-party system of SFR Yugoslavia under the Communist League (SKJ) rule.
[5] In Popović's own words: "Tito very much tried to keep up appearances to the West that his Yugoslavia was not like those people's democracy countries so the act of founding a political party was not constitutionally forbidden nor was it punishable by the criminal code.
[5] In March 1976, Popović was sentenced to a year in prison for "maliciously spreading false information and causing public disorder" by introducing evidence in support of client Dragoljub S. Ignjatović's claim that Yugoslav economic policies were unsuccessful.
The case was publicized by legal and human rights groups and 106 leading American lawyers petitioned Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito requesting that Ignjatović be freed.
[6] Popović later became a part of numerous petitions amongst which urged to abolish verbal offence, to remove the death penalty, to adopt an amnesty law, and to create a multiparty system.
[8] At various points in his career he defended:[9][8] In 1990, alarmed by what he considered to be SR Serbia's president Slobodan Milošević's extreme nationalism as well as the level of popular support he enjoyed, Popović created Vreme, a weekly magazine that became one of the prominent independent publications.
[1] Vreme's first issue came out on Monday, 29 October, featuring, among the political and social topics, Popović's speech from the meeting of the Serb and Croat intellectuals that took place several days earlier at the University Professors' Club (Klub sveučilišnih nastavnika) in Zagreb.
Prefacing his presentation by relaying a personal observation that since he didn't feel he possessed the intellectual authority of a man of science only meant he's addressing the gathering as a 'Serb', making his stance just one of 8 million possible views, Popović opined that the meeting came too early since, according to him, "Serbs and Croats hadn't yet gone through enough soul-searching that would make them into political peoples, a mandatory prerequisite for a dialogue between nations".
Kočevski Rog, Bleiburg, Goli Otok, collectivization and buyout, summary executions of political opponents after gaining power, the terror of UDBA and SDB — all of them crimes, and the corpses are rising to the surface almost daily.
I'm not advocating anti-communist retribution, but until Serbs and Croats face their own selves, until they experience their own historical catharsis some of which predates 1945, they won't return to history, to regular time, and to the international community.
[11] Also, in the second part of 1990, the Federal Executive Council president (Yugoslav prime minister) Ante Marković offered Popović to lead his newly established Reform party's (SRSJ) branch for SR Serbia, a political post that would entail facing off against Slobodan Milošević and his Socialist party at the upcoming 1990 Serbian general election.
In 1991, Popović observed that the human rights of Kosovo Albanians are "systematically and brutally violated" and that "apart from that they are subjected to racist propaganda of a kind that is inconceivable in a state that claims to protect minorities.
"[13] In late June 1991, he left Serbia citing that "manhood there is increasingly based on how willing you are to kill another"[7] and pursued legal work in New York City.
[15] Speaking in 2013 about the 1993 petition, shortly before his death, Popović said: "I signed a letter that was sent to Clinton asking for some sort of limited intervention against the official Belgrade like bombing the airports from which the planes are taking off for Bosnia.
[14] Popović believed that Serbia was primarily responsible for the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia: "The disaster was started by Milošević with the help of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).
[1] Popović commented that Milošević was not "removed by the street [demonstrators], but by the international community with the help of certain circles in the country," stating it was "some kind of agreement.
We need to face the fact we live in a country where 50% of the population is semiliterate, uninformed, and poisoned by the media outlets with nontransparent ownership structure so that we don't know who's financing them.
[18] In November 2010, Popović, acting as the legal representative of Mila Đinđić and Gordana Đinđić-Filipović, assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić's mother and sister, respectively, filed a criminal complaint against former Special Operations Unit (JSO) members Milorad Ulemek, Dušan "Gumar" Maričić, Zvezdan Jovanović, Veselin Lečić, Mića Petraković, Dragoslav "Dragan" Krsmanović, and Dragoš Radić, as well as former Yugoslav president Vojislav Koštunica and former Security Administration head Aco Tomić.
Popović's criminal complaint further accuses then president of FR Yugoslavia, Vojislav Koštunica, of "failing to use the constitutional powers in order to quell the rebellion" while then Military Security Admin head Aco Tomić is accused of "providing the JSO commander with guarantees that the Yugoslav Army (VJ) won't do anything about the rebellion".
[21] In September 2011, following the leak of Miloš Simović's (a Zemun Clan member sentenced to 30 years for his role in the assassination of Zoran Đinđić before later getting a retrial due to being tried in absentia the first time) summer 2010 written testimony in front of the Serbian Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime in which Simović names an individual nicknamed "Ćoki" and "Ćoravi" as the person who ordered Đinđić's murder, Popović told Podgorica's Radio Antena M that "it's clear that nicknames Ćoki and Ćoravi refer to Nebojša Čović", former politician and current Red Star Belgrade basketball club president.
[24] Serbian Minister of Justice at the time, Snezana Malovic, said she "hoped that this is the beginning of the process of providing answers about the open questions in regards to the assassination of Zoran Đinđić".
I thought him to be a pleasant person, not to mention being intelligent and trying to do something for this country from a minority position with Prometheusesque awareness he probably won't succeed.
The position that the state took was both shameful and scandalous, and I'm not saying I've proven the guilt of Koštunica, Čović, and Aco Tomić, but I think that many facts warrant at least their investigative questioning".
[14] In 2012, he criticized the anniversary of the founding of Republika Srpska as attempts to rehabilitate its former president Radovan Karadžić and military leader Ratko Mladić.
[30] She would go on to become a prominent public figure in Serbia with a political career that included several MP terms as well as a seven-year GSS party leadership and an early 2000s ambassadorial stint in Mexico.