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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The pair had joined thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find refuge in their new home, but soon discovered they were wrong.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually allowed to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, 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 let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives 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 warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she stated. "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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad 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 authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Before my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their faith and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a increasing 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 taken the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the community in exile. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to target the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. 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|