Bernd Knopf works at the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency. Previously, he worked as a press officer and later as a media officer at the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration since 1999.   Born in Westphalia, he has worked as an office-head for various members of parliament, as a research assistant at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University and as a freelance journalist in the 1990s.  Knopf has been involved in voluntary refugee work and Turkish solidarity work for many years. Projects abroad have frequently taken him to Turkey and other countries in the Middle East. He is 62 years old, speaks English and Turkish and lives in Berlin.