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In July 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 communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to everyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace acts like going to a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find safety in their new home, but soon discovered they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, helping to produce 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 arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was finally permitted to get on 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 confirmed when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an unexpected 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 warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she explained. "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. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open 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 truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China claims it is addressing 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 follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred 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 gave you employment and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could meet and go as a group."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

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 chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent 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|