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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

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 told him he would be extradited to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find safety in exile, but quickly found they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," she said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur media 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 best friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee 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 Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was eventually allowed 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," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue 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 knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she stated. "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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities 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 these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from attending the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling 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 free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had made the decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed 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 common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of control: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to yield to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his deportation to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was fearless despite China having already shown a willingness to target the relatives 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 followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled 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 extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|