Trapped between nations: One Uyghur family’s journey from East Turkestan to freedom

MNTV News Desk – After fleeing Chinese repression, Uyghurs Idris and Zeynure Hasan thought their family would be safe in exile. But Beijing’s global reach soon shattered that illusion, reports The Guardian.

In July 2021, from her home in Istanbul, Zeynure received a call she had been dreading. Her husband Idris, missing for four days after boarding a flight to Morocco, told her he had been arrested on arrival and faced deportation to China. “You should call anyone who can help me,” he said before the line went dead.

Zeynure, 31, and Idris, 37, are Uyghurs — a Muslim minority from China’s Xinjiang region, or East Turkestan. Over a million Uyghurs have been detained in so-called “re-education” camps for acts as simple as praying or wearing a hijab. Like thousands of others, the Hasans fled to Turkiye in the 2010s, seeking safety.

In Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher and Idris as a translator and designer, helping publish Uyghur books. They had three children and finally lived as Muslims without fear. 

But in 2021, when one of Idris’s friends was arrested amid reports that China was pressuring Turkiye to deport Uyghurs, he panicked. Having been detained before for his activism, Idris decided to flee to Morocco, hoping to secure visas for his family later.

It was a disastrous decision. After Turkish border officials briefly detained him, Idris was allowed to fly — only to be arrested upon arrival in Morocco. China had requested his name be placed on Interpol’s “red notice” list, a tool increasingly used to target dissidents abroad. 

Zeynure believes Turkish officials knowingly let him travel, aware he would be detained.

Soon after, she received a chilling call from her parents in Xinjiang (East Turkestan) — the first in years. “They said, ‘Maybe we can help you,’” she recalls. “But I knew the police were with them. They told me not to do anything to help my husband, not to say anything bad about China.”

Defying that warning, Zeynure decided to speak out. “Before my husband was arrested, I didn’t even have Facebook or Twitter. But I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die.”

Her courage was rooted in her own memories of repression — hijabs torn off in public, bans on Ramadan fasting, and classmates punished for praying. “They wanted Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture,” she says.

After Idris’s arrest, Zeynure launched a desperate campaign to save him. She contacted human rights groups across Europe and the US, protested with her children outside the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and rallied support online. Protests spread to Morocco, forcing authorities to delay his deportation.

Under pressure, Interpol canceled Idris’s red notice in August 2021. But Morocco’s courts still ruled he should be extradited. Zeynure believes Beijing threatened to withdraw investments if he were freed. The UN intervened, warning Idris faced torture in China as Morocco remained reluctant to oppose China’s wishes.

Months turned to years. Idris languished in prison, terrified. “Every time the prison door opened, he said, ‘I thought they would deport me to China,’” recalls Zeynure. Their youngest daughter became withdrawn and anxious.

Then, in February 2025, a breakthrough came. After US pressure, Morocco quietly released Idris. “I was crying and laughing. My emotions were all over the place,” says Zeynure. On February 14, she got the call she had long prayed for — Idris had landed safely in Washington, D.C.

Still, it took another seven months before the family was reunited. With help from Canada, Zeynure and the children finally flew from Istanbul to Toronto in September 2025, where Idris was waiting.

“As soon as I saw him, all my anxieties disappeared,” she says. “If a normal person commits a crime, they know when they’ll be released. But if you are Uyghur, you can be arrested for nothing — and never know if you’ll see your family again.”