The city used to be the site of one of the most terrible prisons of the communist regime, where both ordinary criminals and political prisoners such as Bashkim Shehu and Fatos Lubonja or the Catholic priest Dom Simon Jubani were held.
He is an outspoken critic of the Albanian socio-political factors, i.e. right-wing leader Sali Berisha, Socialist Party leader Edvin Kristaq Rama, former KLA leader Ramush Haradinaj, Red and Black Alliance, and poet and novelist Ismail Kadare.