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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Call anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find security in their new home, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape 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 Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she stated. "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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Prior to 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 reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up 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 animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

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

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to prison 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 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 growing 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 get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the community in exile. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of control: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice 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 advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|