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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. There had been four stressful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about half of the residents in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They hoped they would find refuge in exile, but soon realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to close all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. 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 visa for the family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure said. Her worst fears were confirmed when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

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

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

Parental Interference

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she explained. "I realized 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at risk, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the police and had been determined to live in a country with religious freedom.

"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 rescue my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

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 rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, 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 religious journey to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you employment and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and ready to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living 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 Uyghur population in exile. "There are many children now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at finding a place of safety abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless 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 sharing updates on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled 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|