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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been difficult.

But the news her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Reach out to everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like going to a mosque or using a headscarf.

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

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually allowed 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 said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated 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 told me, '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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in public by the authorities and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Before my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or killed. They forced 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 grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

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

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, 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 arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college in another part of 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 was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and shy, 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 two months they were married and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar language and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help the community in diaspora. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to decide.

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