Mar 28, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

A large blue-and-white poster with the word “peace” written across it covers the front window of Korab Zuka’s Washington apartment.

The Kosovo native put the poster up as a practical matter. While babysitting his landlord’s dog, Zuka went shopping and left the pet in his apartment. When Zuka returned, he found that the dog had chewed through the blinds on his front window, leaving his front room exposed. A poster would have to do as a makeshift blind.

The 23-year-old said he created the poster and decorated it with the word “peace” because, “if people believed in a little more peace, then I wouldn’t have had to go through all the crap that I went through.”

Zuka fled to the United States last year after an Islamic fundamentalist group in Kosovo threatened to kill him for being gay and for leading a gay advocacy group. The State Department granted him asylum Feb. 29.

Zuka’s recent escape was not the first time he had to flee his country to maintain his safety. In 1999, he left a war-decimated Kosovo as Serbian President Slobodan Miloeviç attempted to purge the Serbian homeland of ethnic Albanians, such as Zuka. A 13-year-old Zuka and his family sought temporary safety in a Canadian refugee camp.

“I’ve been put so many times in very uncomfortable situations and the first was the war and [the second was when] I had to leave because I was gay,” Zuka said.

In April 2005, Zuka set up the Center for Social Emancipation, an organization aimed at helping Kosovo gays. The center organized social gatherings and distributed information to keep the community better informed.

The group had about 200 members, but none of them were registered by name because they were afraid of being outed, Zuka said. He said he didn’t know half of the members’ names and instead had to refer to them by nicknames or by letters like X or B.

The center maintained a web site that informed the community about safety practices and legal ramifications of being gay. The site informed people that gay activity is legal in the country and attempted to debunk a common belief in Kosovo that homosexuality is a disease.

Zuka said the site included information stating that “you can play football and still be gay — it’s cool. Don’t kill yourself over it.”

Zuka rented apartments in the area and listed only his name as an occupant so others would not know it belonged to a gay association. Through word of mouth, people would come in the evenings to meet. Zuka changed the location of the meeting place when it became too apparent that gay people were gathering there. He went through three locations in two-and-a-half years.

As head of the center, Zuka also advised the Kosovo police commissioner on gay issues. Zuka was part of a working group with the police that attempted to mitigate the number of gay bashings in the country.

Zuka said the police there had a history of hostility to gays even when they were victims of crimes. Police would often call victims “faggots” and other gay slurs even after their “limbs were broken or their eyes had been smashed out,” Zuka said.

“Every time someone complained to the police, they were sort of further victimized,” he said.

“I wanted the police to not do that anymore.”

Zuka said the police kicked him out of the working group because he often complained about them to local media.

Zuka continued to work for the center until a television appearance forced him to flee the country. Last year, Zuka appeared on a local talk show to discuss the center. He was hidden behind a curtain, his voice was scrambled and his name was not given, but somehow his identity was divulged, he said.

He received death threats and his car was vandalized. Zuka went to the police, but their response was “if they want to kill you, they’ll just kill you, so we cannot protect you,” he said.

Zuka received a message signed by an Islamic fundamentalist group stating that his home and family would be bombed if he did not leave Kosovo. That’s when he decided to flee. Zuka still had a U.S. visa from the time he earned his associate’s degree at the Leadership Institute of Seattle, so he decided to come to the United States.