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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Call everyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, 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 estimated to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like attending a mosque or using a hijab.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was eventually allowed to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested 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, despite the consequences.

Parental Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed 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 help you,'" she 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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

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

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She eventually 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 introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married 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 similar tongue and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many children 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 place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to force other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|