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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like going to a place of worship or using a hijab.

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

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government threatened to close all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. 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 travel document for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained 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 "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got 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 warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she explained. "I knew 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

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

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their faith and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you employment and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

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