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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Istanbul when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris shared was even worse. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be sent back to China. "Reach out to everyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like going to a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but soon found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "After he was eventually allowed to board 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 realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents 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 aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Family Interference

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

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some authorities 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the authorities and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Before 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 these platforms. 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 abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

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

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget 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 coming back home from university in Eastern China to a increasing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I saw 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 different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to stop his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members 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 followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to determine.

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