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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. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

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

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find safety in their new home, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and felt able to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided 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 whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, despite the risks.

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few 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,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew 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. 'Don't do anything except caring for 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 open 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 save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

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 countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith 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 brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided 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 growing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had made the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time 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 on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

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

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert 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 significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|