The Activist Who Challenged China and Secured Her Spouse's Freedom

In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Contact anyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find safety in their new home, but soon found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the consequences.

Parental Interference

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family 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 disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she explained. "I realized 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

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

"Prior to my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just caring for 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 truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy 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 kind 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 vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested 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 provided you jobs and this good living 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 classmates. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could meet and go together."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect 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 short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and pleaded 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 Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement 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 pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|