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In July 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. There had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Morocco. The silence had been torturous.

But the news her husband Idris delivered was more alarming. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Call everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are members of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about 50% of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or wearing a hijab.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find security in exile, but soon discovered 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 settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and publications. 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 book repository containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous detention, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the whole family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was finally permitted 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 confirmed when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Parental Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return 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 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 safety at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in open by the authorities 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 these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside 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 kind of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too beautiful, like a picture from a book."

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

China says it is tackling extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She finally 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 knew we both had taken the decision to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also support the community in exile. "We have many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or language so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents abroad 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 financial influence to pressure other countries to bend to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his deportation to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed online in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to target the relatives of other individuals.

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

In early August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's red notice after being urged to review 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 huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|