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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris shared was more alarming. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can assist me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for commonplace 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 security in exile, but soon found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to close all its factories in the country if Morocco freed him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator 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 arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris 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 deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off 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 told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew there must be some police 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. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

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

"Prior to 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 rescue my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you employment and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from university 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 knew we both had taken the decision to go abroad 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 be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the community in exile. "There are many kids 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 locating a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled 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 red notice after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|