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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Call everyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

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 north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find safety in exile, but soon found they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to close all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," she stated.

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

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, 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 remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris 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 trap to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, despite the risks.

Family Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized 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. '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 risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Prior to my husband was arrested in Morocco, I didn't do anything. I was just looking after my family; I didn't even have Facebook 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 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 happy days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

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

China says it is addressing extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She finally decided to depart China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had made the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps we could meet and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful 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 two months they were wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a newer method of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to bend to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering 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 on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to target the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to determine.

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