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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities stated he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur community, which makes up about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like attending a mosque or using a headscarf.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find safety in exile, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, 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 decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris 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," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing 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 says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some police there with them and just pretended like I didn't know anything. But they persisted and told me not to do anything to help my husband. 'Don't do anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in open 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 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 pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from attending the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and sent 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 jobs and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a growing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken 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 honest and shy, 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 two months they were married and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the community in diaspora. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to decide.

In early 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 ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|