The Wife Who Defied Chinese Authorities and Achieved Her Spouse's Freedom

In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like going to a mosque or using a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in exile, but soon discovered they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its factories in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News 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 advocates 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 visa for the whole family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, despite the consequences.

Family Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return 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 explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just acted 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 caring for 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 been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Before my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They wanted 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 depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs 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 perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months 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 residing there, with a similar tongue and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "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 overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system 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 huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|