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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can help me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like attending a mosque or wearing a hijab.

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

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and enjoyed free to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library 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 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 lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually 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," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, despite the consequences.

Parental Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received 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 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. Perhaps we can help you,'" she explained. "I realized there must be some authorities 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. 'Avoid doing 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 softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in public by the police and had been determined 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 social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from university 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 choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could meet and go as a group."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|