Right to Breathe
LGBTQ+ rights in the Middle East Region
” I’m living in Egypt and my name is Waaiz. I don’t have the right to breathe here because like other countries in this region we don’t have any supporting laws for LGBTQ. Every day we experience harassment and systematic suppression. People can do whatever they want to us, even police can detain and torture us solely because of our gender expression. Believe it or not, I’m scared for my life, and I think I can’t find a normal life here. I know some friends who had been arrested by police, they trapped them through dating applications. They got physically and mentally and forced to sign confessions. I’m not optimistic about the future but maybe things change.”
About Ashkan
Ashkan Shabani is a self-educated photographer and visual storyteller based in Turkey. As a teenager he started photography by taking family pictures. In 2016, he started working as a photographer for a local news agency called DiyarMirza which led him to work with the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) in 2017. Since then he has covered stories such as the Iran presidential election, the Kermanshah earthquake, the 2018 and 2019 floods in Iran for ISNA. Over the years, his focus shifted away from journalistic photography to documentary photography. As a photographer, he explores social questions and human rights, especially LGBTQ+ rights in the Middle East region. He is represented by Redux Pictures Agency and is a member of Native Agency.