‘Even when you tell your family you are gay, you still have to get married and have kids,’ said Korab Zuka, explaining the situation in his native Kosovo, once part of Yugoslavia in southern Europe.
He established the Center for Social Emancipation in April 2005, the first organization promoting LGBT rights in Kosovo. He hid his own identity and appeared on a national television program, behind a curtain, his voice electronically altered.
But his secret leaked out and there were death threats, his car was vandalized. A fundamentalist Muslim group vowed to bomb he and his family if he did not leave the country and the police said they could not protect him.
Zuka left his homeland in May 2007 and applied for political asylum in the U.S. in 2007. He was one of the lucky ones, it was granted and he now lives in Washington, D.C.
—Bob Roehr