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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be sent back to China. "Contact everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a million Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary acts like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find safety 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 country if Morocco released him," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and felt free to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, 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 terrible decision. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was finally 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," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed 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: defy China, despite the consequences.

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just acted 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 negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the police and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue 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."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep 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 scene from a story."

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

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their faith and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave 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 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 get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very honest 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 unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the community in diaspora. "There are 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 sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to 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 family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to determine.

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