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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 news her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like going to a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find safety 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 country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. 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 supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

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

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

Family Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected 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 a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized 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. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the police 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. 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 countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their religion and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you employment and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from college in another part of 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 choice 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 wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to move 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 shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of repression: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against 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 on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system 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 sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|