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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris shared was more alarming. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find safety in exile, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed 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 travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "After he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns 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 political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some police 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety 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 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 looking after 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 deported to China will be abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a increasing repression 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 choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days 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 educator and creative, they could also help the community in exile. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to force other countries to yield to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

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 prevent his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. 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|