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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris shared was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to anyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like attending a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find security in their new home, but quickly found they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its factories in the country if Morocco freed him," she explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided 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 family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure stated. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just acted like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the police 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

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

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from university in another part of China to a increasing 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 taken the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the community in exile. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

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