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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence 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 Morocco. The silence had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Contact everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace 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 2010s. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to practice 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 extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials took Idris 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 recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, regardless of the consequences.

Family Pressure

Soon after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives 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 chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "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. 'Avoid doing anything except caring for 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 grown up witnessing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been resolved 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have social media or Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I'd play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the house and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to forget their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this beautiful living 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 introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic 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 Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a place of safety overseas 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 faced was a newer method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other nations to yield to its demands, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in the EU and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat 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 judicial system to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to reexamine his case by human rights groups. But that did not stop a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|