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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to everyone who can assist me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like going to a place of worship or using a hijab.

The pair had joined thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find refuge in their new home, but soon found they were mistaken.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

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

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

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

Parental Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family 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 message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police and had been resolved 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 social media 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 deported to China will be abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her early years 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 opportunity again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

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

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to 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 issue in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you employment and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a growing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "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 comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and shy, 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."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to move 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 ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help 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 responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|