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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Istanbul when she got 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 Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to everyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like going to a mosque or using a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find safety in their new home, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates 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 request a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," she said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

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

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

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, 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 jailed for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help 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 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 been raised witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police and had been determined 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 Facebook 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 abused or die. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to depart 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 school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help the community in exile. "There are many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. 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 diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

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