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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like attending a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had joined thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find security in their new home, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

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

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained 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 high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the risks.

Family Interference

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "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 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. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood 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 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 house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from attending the mosque 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 constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a increasing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected 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 get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I realized 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 marry me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed 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 tongue and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of repression: using China's increasing financial influence to force other nations to bend to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. 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 diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. 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|