The Activist Who Defied China and Won Her Spouse's Liberty

In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris shared was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find security in their new home, but quickly found they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to close all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, border control officials pulled him 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," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized 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 pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Parental Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family 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 warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she explained. "I knew there must be some police 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. '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 grown up seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

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 grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their religion and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed 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 comparable tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the community in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics abroad 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 financial influence to force other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to reexamine 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 diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|