🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like attending a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find safety in exile, but quickly realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Parental Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she stated. "I knew there must be some police there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Prior to 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 reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different 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'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a increasing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced 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 meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|