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In the summer of 2021, Zeynure Hasan was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris shared was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find safety in their new home, but quickly discovered they were wrong.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and designer, helping to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and felt able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News 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 supporting 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 Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed 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," she recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by border officials.

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

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, regardless of the consequences.

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family 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 warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she stated. "I knew there must be some police 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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in public by the police and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you employment and this beautiful life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I saw 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 wed and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and common ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the community in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of control: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on social media. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|