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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris shared was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Contact anyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about 50% of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a million Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like going to a mosque or wearing a hijab.

The pair had joined thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find refuge in exile, but quickly found they were mistaken.

"I was told 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 designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and felt able to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "When he was finally permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an surprising 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 a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized there must be some authorities 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the truth to the world. 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 blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "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 home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a story."

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

China says it is tackling extremism through 'managing unauthorized 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 religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage 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 religion and heritage. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you employment and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a growing repression on religious freedoms 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 perhaps we could get together and go together."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and ready to move for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the community in exile. "We have many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents abroad through the use of monitoring, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including arresting and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the family members of other targets.

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 calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to decide.

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