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

But the update her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities told him he would be sent back to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but quickly found they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government threatened to close all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, helping to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had three children and felt free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring 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 flee 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 Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the consequences.

Parental Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "I realized 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding 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 remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities and had been determined 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 Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

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

She finally decided to leave China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the decision to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar language and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the community in exile. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location 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 faced was a more recent method of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice 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 listed on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop 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|