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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Call anyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like attending a mosque or using a hijab.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find security in exile, but soon realized they were mistaken.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. 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 activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using 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 claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, despite the risks.

Parental Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off 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 message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some police 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. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been resolved 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 Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different 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 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 farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'managing unauthorized 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 practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

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

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I realized 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 60 days they were wed and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the community in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

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 right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded 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 diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|