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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she answered a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris shared was even worse. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Reach out to everyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but quickly realized they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco freed him," Zeynure said.

After moving 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 three children and enjoyed free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best 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 deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was finally permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the last ten years, 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 high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family 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 going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she explained. "I knew 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 feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the authorities and had been determined to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They forced 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 rural areas with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being prohibited from going to the religious site or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the decision to go overseas 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 honest and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

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

But their sense of safety at locating a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her surprise, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a statement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In early 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 deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|