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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually allowed to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she 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 dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing 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 consequences.

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated 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 disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the police and had been determined 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 reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture 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 attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow 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 issue in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their faith and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you employment and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest 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 two months they were married and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many kids 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 relief at locating a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

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 short window of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the family members of other individuals.

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

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