Javid Nabiyev sits down outside the empty cafe before announcing he doesn’t want anything to eat or drink. Instead, he smokes. It gives him something to do with his hands. Between finishing one cigarette and lighting another, his palms are reflected in his glasses as he acts out the frustrations he’s faced as a gay asylum-seeker in Germany.
The 26-year-old LGBTI rights activist fled Azerbaijan to escape discrimination and the threat of prison, which he felt was creeping ever closer.
“When I came to Germany, I thought everything would be OK,” he said. Instead, he found the discrimination he faced at home echoed in an accommodation center in Oerlinghausen, a city west of Berlin.
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About the author
Morgan Meaker
Morgan Meaker is a London-based freelance journalist. She writes for Reuters, the Guardian and the BBC among others. She covers human rights, development and sustainable business at home and abroad.