🔗 Share this article

In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find safety in exile, but soon found they were wrong.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to close all its factories in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape 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 Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally allowed to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Family Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected 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 a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she explained. "I realized there must be some authorities 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings ripped off 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. 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 memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the community in diaspora. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

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 stop 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 brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to determine.

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