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In July 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered 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 Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Reach out to everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, 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 past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like attending a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find refuge in exile, but soon found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was finally permitted to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global 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 allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off 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. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure stated. "I realized 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in public by the police 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 rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

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

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after coming back home from college in Eastern 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 knew we both had taken the decision to go abroad 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 honest and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the community in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer tool of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone 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 stop his deportation to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert 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 extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|