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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Contact everyone who can assist me," he urged, 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 half of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary 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 2010s. They hoped they would find safety in their new home, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," she explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed free to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed 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," she said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

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

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got 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 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,'" she stated. "I knew there must be some police 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 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 stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in open by the authorities 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or these platforms. 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 raise my voice."

Childhood 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 agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave 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 growing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help the community in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language 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 abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation 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 willingness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being urged to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|