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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

But the update her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Reach out to everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. 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 ordinary acts like attending a mosque or using a headscarf.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find safety in their new home, but soon realized they were wrong.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape 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 whole family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was finally 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 deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some police 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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Prior to 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 truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct 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 agricultural workers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had taken the choice to go abroad 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 tell lies 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 move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. 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|