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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Call anyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

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

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, helping to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

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

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I knew there must be some police 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. 'Don't do anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in public by the police and had been determined 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 reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education 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 abroad were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She finally decided to leave China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a growing crackdown 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 maybe we could get together and go together."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the community in diaspora. "There are many children now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or dialect 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 overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled 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 extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|