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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

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

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

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

"I was told that the Beijing officials warned to close all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," she said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports 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 promoting Uyghur heritage. He chose to escape 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 Costly Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, regardless of the risks.

Family Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew there must be some police 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "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 land. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals 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 aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their religion and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you jobs and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing 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 decision to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

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 Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a secure location abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning 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 advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the relatives 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 release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not stop 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|