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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can assist me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur community, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like attending a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple 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 discovered they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to close all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt free to practice as Muslims.

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. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually allowed to get on 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 taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected 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 jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some police there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding 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 been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been determined 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 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 abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up 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 elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you employment and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually 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 knew we both had taken 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 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 different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool 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 silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|