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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she got 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 Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Call anyone who can assist me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the population in China's north-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 commonplace acts like going to a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find security in their new home, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was connected 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 family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was finally permitted 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 worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, 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 most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents 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 disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they insisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing 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 Facebook or these platforms. 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 abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

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 grandparents, 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 family around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith 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 forget their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had made the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to force other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

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

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|