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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 preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris shared was even worse. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur community, which makes up about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "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 escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find safety in exile, but soon found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," she stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best 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 extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was finally 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," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising 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 a few months upon their return 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 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 negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in public 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 Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the house and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had taken the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married 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 common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the community in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty 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 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 demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat 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 courts to determine.

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