In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.
But the news her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went silent.
Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey
Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a hijab.
The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but soon realized they were mistaken.
"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government threatened to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," she explained.
After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and felt able to live as followers of Islam.
But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided 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, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually allowed to board 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 deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained 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 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: challenge China, despite the consequences.
Parental Pressure
Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her family 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 told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"
But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in public by the police and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.
"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 Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."
Growing Up in Xinjiang
Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."
The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.
China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow 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 problem in their mind.
"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave 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 beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."
Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything bad. 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 new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and common 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 kids now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.
But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other nations to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.
Fighting for Release
After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to target the family members of other individuals.
Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to determine.
In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew 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|
