Moritz, from Iran
My name is Moritz, and I am a 22-year-old gay man and a Christian, from Iran. I claimed asylum in the UK just after I had turned 18. I knew that, as a gay man and a Christian, I would not be safe in Iran. LGBTQI people are at risk of arrest in Iran, and if arrested and charged, they face the death penalty.
I first left Iran when I was 14, to go to boarding school in Switzerland. After that, I moved to a boarding school in England, where I did my GCSEs and A Levels. Boarding school made me grow up quickly, and living in the UK made me start to realise that I could not go back to my home country. I was starting to realise that I was bisexual, maybe even gay. This, combined with my Christian beliefs, would put me at risk.
Applying for asylum
It was on my last visit home to Iran, when I was 17, that I came to the realisation that I was going to have to claim asylum in the UK. I thought a lot think about the impact claiming asylum would have on me and family. As much as I love my family and my country, at the end of the day, people like me are not welcomed in Iran. They can’t live openly or safely, and I want to live my life without fearing arrest or worse.
I applied for asylum in August 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic. I moved to London and was living alone, unable to work or study. I was very lonely and had nothing to do, and most of my friends from boarding school didn’t live or study in the UK. I was still very young and had been used to living with host families during my time at boarding school. London is a very fast-paced city where everyone is always in a rush. Being alone was new and bewildering, and I cried a lot!
Coming out as LGBTQI and finding community
Even though I had applied for asylum in part because of my LGBTQI identity, it was a big step for me to ‘come out of the closet’ and be around other people like me. My boarding schools had all been in the countryside, there weren’t really any (openly) gay people around. The one or two people who had been out as LGBTQI at my schools had been mercilessly bullied. That really affected me and my confidence to come out.
I had been able to secure a lawyer to help me with my asylum claim, and luckily, she recognised how lonely I was and suggested that I try and find other people like me. She recommended some organisations to contact, and one of them was Micro Rainbow.
Support from Micro Rainbow
I read case studies on the Micro Rainbow website about how the safe housing programme helps LGBTQI asylum seekers with somewhere safe to stay. This made me feel like Micro Rainbow was a safe organisation and led me to reach out online, and one of the team got in touch with me soon after. They called me to learn a bit more about my situation and to invite me to join the social inclusion programme.
I didn’t know what to expect with Micro Rainbow’s events. I thought it would be like the kinds of support groups you see in the movies – in a church, and everyone sitting on chairs in a circle talking about themselves. And I thought that would be quite interesting! But it was still the pandemic, all events were online, so we kind of sat in a virtual church circle, learning about each other’s experiences together.
Finding community
Even though the events were online, they were still active and fun. I loved the online creative dance sessions and other activity sessions. I attended the Know Your Rights asylum support sessions. These were really useful for giving me more information about the process of claiming asylum.
I waited three years for my asylum claim to be resolved, and I attended Micro Rainbow events and activities throughout that time. The activities, and the support I received from outreach officers at Micro Rainbow helped me a lot, especially when I was finding my community. Even after I got my refugee status, I still received a lot of support from the team. Micro Rainbow helped me to feel supported and less alone during what was a difficult time in my life.
