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

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can rescue me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like attending a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find security in exile, but quickly discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Family Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising 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 imprisoned for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "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. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "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 home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

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

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the decision 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 be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the community in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised 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 secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering 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 right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to review 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|