🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the consequences.

Family Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just acted like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Before my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the community in exile. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|