🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed 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 Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur 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 imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in their new home, but soon found they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up 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 target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Family Interference

Soon after learning 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 jailed for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They told me, '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 insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Before my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just looking after my family; I didn't even have Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

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

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from university 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 school friends. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I realized 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 wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common background. "It felt 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 growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over 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 support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

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