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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities told him he would be sent back to China. "Contact everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions like attending a place of worship or using a headscarf.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but quickly realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

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 urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he believed was linked to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was finally allowed to board 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 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 pursue dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Parental Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family 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 told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew there must be some authorities 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the authorities 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 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 tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', 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 religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the community in exile. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting 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 financial influence to pressure other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over 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 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 demonstrated a willingness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being pressed to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|