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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. It had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris shared was more alarming. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

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 region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and felt 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. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. 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 happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned 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. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew 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. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 save my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

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

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education 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. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared background. "It felt 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 being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at finding a secure location abroad was temporary. 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 newer method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to force other nations to yield to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In early 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 deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|