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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions 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 safety in exile, but quickly discovered they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government threatened to close all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," she stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually allowed 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," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the risks.

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising 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 imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she explained. "I realized there must be some authorities 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 life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings 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 social media or Twitter. 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 tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced 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 nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the decision to go overseas 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 shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything bad. 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 married and ready 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 language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to target the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of 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 sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|