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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

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

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like attending a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in exile, but quickly found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally permitted 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 recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international 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 let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Parental Interference

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

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she explained. "I realized 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 negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the police and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 social media or these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from university in Eastern 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 was aware we both had taken 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 truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

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