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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been difficult.

But the news her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Call everyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Life as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education 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 escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find safety in their new home, but quickly found they were wrong.

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to close all its factories in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was finally permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed 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 help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I knew there must be some authorities 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying 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 seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in open by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Before my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood 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 animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a increasing repression 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 taken the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured 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 unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the community in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his extradition 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 brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the judicial system to decide.

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|