🔗 Share this article

In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been difficult.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur community, which makes up about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

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

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted 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," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they visited 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 authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the police and had been determined 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 social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't tell lies 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 married and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against 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 advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless 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 online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop 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|