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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated 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 torturous.

But the news her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to everyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about 50% of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

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

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was finally permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few 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 help you,'" she 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 remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the police and had been resolved 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

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 countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their faith and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you employment 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 repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "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 truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the community in exile. "We have 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 place of safety overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately 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 brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|