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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the news her husband Idris shared was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Reach out to anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a million Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find safety in their new home, but soon found they were mistaken.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and felt free 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 summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

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

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off 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 tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her childhood 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 poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a growing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

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

Fresh Start 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 common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's growing financial influence to force other nations to yield to its will, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away contacted 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 shown a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|