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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been unbearable.

But the update her husband Idris shared was even worse. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary actions like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find refuge in their new home, but soon realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government threatened to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," she stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a book repository 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 vulnerable due to his prior detention, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the family.

A Costly Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure said. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an surprising 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 imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some police there with them and just acted 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. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in public by the authorities 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have social media or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood 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 chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the house and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China says it is addressing extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute 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 detained and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away 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 wed me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims 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 help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty 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 pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised on the internet in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being urged 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 significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|