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In July 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 agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris shared was even worse. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find safety in their new home, but quickly found they were wrong.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was finally allowed to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the risks.

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, 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 going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew there must be some police 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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the authorities 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 Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured 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 countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

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

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia 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 trust in us, we provided you employment and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from university in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|