You are applying for asylum as an LGBT person. You are not alone. The UK takes this seriously.
What to do right now:
(A lawyer can help for free via Legal Aid if you have no money)
«In C-148/13, C-149/13 and C-150/13 the European Court ruled that Member States must not accept sexually explicit material. In cases in which a claimant or their legal representative seeks to submit such material, it must be refused and returned to them. Any visual material depicting sexual acts must not be accepted.»
«A claimant is never to be asked to supply video or photographic evidence of sexually intimate acts; any such evidence of a person engaging in sexual activity is not in and of itself evidence of sexual orientation and has NO evidential value.»
The Home Office compares your account with what UNHCR, ILGA, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the US State Department report about your country. This is a standard procedure for all asylum claims, not only LGBT ones.
These public reports are called Country of Origin Information (COI). For some countries the Home Office also publishes its own Country Policy and Information Notes (CPIN). For Russia there is a CPIN version 2.0 from June 2025 (77 pages). For Uzbekistan there is a CPIN from July 2024.
Not needed (verbatim from Home Office policy): intimate photos, videos of sexual acts — these are explicitly prohibited (see fact box above).
No. The Home Office explicitly prohibits this (see fact box above, API v6.0 pp. 30-32).
If your lawyer or anyone else requests such material, that is a breach of Home Office policy. You can complain to the IAA Commissioner.
That is normal in LGBT cases. Home Office decision-makers are trained to take account of stigma, secrecy, and delayed disclosure — the fact that many people are not able to speak openly about their orientation for a long time.
A detailed witness statement combined with COI about your country is the baseline combination. The statement is written in the language you know best and then translated into English.
In 2010 the UK Supreme Court in HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v SSHD [2010] UKSC 31 held that a person cannot be refused asylum on the basis that they could conceal their orientation on return to their home country.
The Home Office must assess what would happen to you if you lived openly — not assume you would hide your identity.
In 2024 the European Court of Human Rights in M.I. v Switzerland (App. 56390/21) further closed the «discretion for personal reasons» loophole. Recent CPINs have started removing explicit references to HJ (Iran), but the case law continues to apply.
Country of Origin Information (COI) consists of public reports from UNHCR, ILGA, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the US State Department about the LGBT situation in your country.
The Home Office publishes its own CPIN only for Russia (June 2025, v2.0, 77 pages) and Uzbekistan (July 2024). For Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan there is no dedicated UK CPIN — the Home Office relies on international sources.
