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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

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

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find refuge in their new home, but soon realized they were mistaken.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists 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 family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative 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 public by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a scene 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 going to the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith 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 brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you employment and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a increasing 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 taken the decision to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and common 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 duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to force other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|