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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find safety in their new home, 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 released him," she stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. 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 visa for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

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

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

Parental Interference

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned 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. Maybe we can assist you,'" she stated. "I knew 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the authorities and had been resolved 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 social media 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 speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. 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 story."

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

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal 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 religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being urged to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|