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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Istanbul when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

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

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find security in exile, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, border control 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," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing 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 jailed 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. Maybe we can assist you,'" she stated. "I knew there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, 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 authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Before 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 abused or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

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 religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, 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 detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted 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 wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

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 support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to determine.

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