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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 stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture 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 hoped they would find safety in their new home, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to flee 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 Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising 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 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 assist 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and heritage. They said 'you should believe 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 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 decision to go abroad and told us perhaps 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 tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are 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 abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity 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 Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to target the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being pressed to reexamine 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|