Weilina was arrested around mid-March 2018 and was sent to an internment camp together with two of her three sons, Muheyati Haliyoula, and Parisati Haliyoula, and her husband, Haliyoula Tuerxun. Her eldest son, now living in Kazakhstan and interviewed by Amnesty International, believes that their detention was linked to the activism of his father who exposed the death of an ethnic Kazakh in an internment camp in Xinjiang. In December 2020, Weilina’s eldest son was told by a trusted source that his father had died in detention, probably because of torture or ill-treatment he endured while detained. Welina’s eldest son believes she was also subjected to ill-treatment while held in an internment camp between 2018 and early 2019.

Weilina and her two youngest sons were released in early 2019 and have been closely monitored by the authorities since then. The last time Weilina’s eldest son was able to talk with them was in August 2020, when the authorities allowed a video call. After that call, Weilina and her two youngest sons went missing.