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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 agonizing days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

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

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find refuge in their new home, but quickly discovered they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," she said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository 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 arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose 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 Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him 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 trap to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international 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 apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

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

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she explained. "I knew 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. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The relatives 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 cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college 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 was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and shy, 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."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the community in exile. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity 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 fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|