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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Call anyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

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

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, helping to produce Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was connected 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 Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. 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 relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, regardless of the consequences.

Parental Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated 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 disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some authorities there with them and just acted like I didn't know anything. But they insisted 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 remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 social media or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

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

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also help the community in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

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 chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless 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 sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert 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 huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|