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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Istanbul when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been unbearable.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Call everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like attending a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find safety in exile, but quickly realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the whole 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 happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, despite the consequences.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities and had been resolved 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 rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their faith and culture. They said 'you should trust 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 Eastern China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the decision to go abroad and told us maybe we could meet and go as a group."

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

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 Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to review 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 huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|