Leyla Mustafayeva

(from Azerbaijan, JiR in 2017/18)

“The time that I spent in Leipzig within the JiR programme restored to my daughter and myself the peace that I had lost in Baku and Tbilisi. I remember the time in Baku when my husband and I had to hide ourselves in a bakery when we noticed a secret policeman tailing us and we slipped out through the back door. And after my husband, the investigative journalist Afgan Mukhtarli, was kidnapped from Tbilisi and ultimately jailed in Azerbaijan, the six months I spent in Georgia were the most terrible time, My daughter and I were able to separate these nightmares from our daily life and send them to the archive, thanks to the supportive environment we found in Leipzig”.