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

But the update her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Contact anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find refuge in their new home, but soon found they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to close all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator 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 containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

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

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew there must be some authorities there with them and just acted like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do 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 been raised 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 reveal the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different 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 animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

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

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training 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. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from university in Eastern China to a increasing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and shy, and couldn't be dishonest 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 two months they were married and ready to move 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' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the community in diaspora. "We have 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 sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

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 opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a willingness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to determine.

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