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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and jailed. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Contact everyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, 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 western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for commonplace actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but soon discovered they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris started as a interpreter and designer, assisting to publish Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

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

What happened next would lead her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Family Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off 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 disturbing message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" Zeynure stated. "I knew there must be some police 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 bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety 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 open 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or these platforms. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different 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'd play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the religious site or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to leave China after returning home from university in another part of China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the choice to go abroad and told us perhaps we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest 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 married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, 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 relief at finding a place of safety overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Campaigning for Freedom

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to prevent his deportation to China. She right away 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 individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on online platforms. To her amazement, copycat protests soon occurred in Morocco demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being pressed to reexamine 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 significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|