In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been unbearable.
But the information her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went silent.
Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or using a hijab.
The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. 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 country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.
After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and felt able to practice 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 pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and promoting 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 whole family.
Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When 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 recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.
Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.
What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the risks.
Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their return to China.
Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew 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. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"
But with her husband's safety at risk, 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 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 Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to speak out."
Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."
The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.
China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.
"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you employment and this good life here'," says Zeynure.
She finally decided to leave China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a growing 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 taken the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."
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 men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."
Within two months they were wed and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.
But their relief at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of control: using China's growing financial influence to force other nations to yield to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.
After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to target the family members of other targets.
Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to decide.
In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|
