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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 painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris shared was more alarming. He told her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can help me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like attending a place of worship or using a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find security in their new home, but quickly realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and designer, helping to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained 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 arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the 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 allowed to get on the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding 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 stay quiet. She had been raised witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in open by the authorities 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 Facebook 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 deported to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

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

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

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith 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 issue in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to abandon their religion and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we gave you employment and this good life here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew 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 right away reassured by Idris. "I saw 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 marry me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers 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 help the community in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language 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 overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of repression: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a readiness to go after the family members of other targets.

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

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to reexamine his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|