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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Istanbul when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find security in their new home, but quickly found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," she explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, helping to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting 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 whole family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears 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 dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some authorities 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings 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 these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood 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'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, 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 going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested 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 employment and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a growing repression 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 meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful 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 unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

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

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