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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Call everyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find security in their new home, but soon realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned 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. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have social media 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 die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years 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 poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type 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 interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you employment and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a growing repression 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 decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could meet and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language 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. "There are many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|