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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like going to a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought 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 factories in the country if Morocco freed him," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents 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 chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she stated. "I realized 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 feeding 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 seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal 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 two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you employment and this beautiful living 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 introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very honest 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 unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," 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 language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away 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 fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the family members of other individuals.

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

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent 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|