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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like attending a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find refuge in their new home, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and designer, helping to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested 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 suspected was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided 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 visa for the family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

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

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, despite the risks.

Family Pressure

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

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she explained. "I knew there must be some police 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. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been determined 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 rescue my husband – I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I used to 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 land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their faith and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you jobs and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help the community in diaspora. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown 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 statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent 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|