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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she answered a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris shared was even worse. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can help me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace actions like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They believed they would find refuge in their new home, but quickly found they were wrong.

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

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris began as a interpreter and artist, assisting to publish Uyghur news and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt free to live as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed in a book repository stocking Uyghur books, was arrested in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was finally allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

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

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, despite the risks.

Family Pressure

Shortly after hearing of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" Zeynure explained. "I realized there must be some authorities there with them and just acted 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 caring for your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up witnessing women having their hijabs ripped off in public by the police and had been determined 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 looking after my family; I didn't even have social media or these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to reveal the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be tortured or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside 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 land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China claims it is addressing 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 free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a growing repression on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and reserved, 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."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were wed and ready to move for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar language and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, they could also help the community in diaspora. "There are many children now in China being raised 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 secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of repression: using China's increasing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the relatives of other individuals.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's alert after being urged to review his case by advocacy organizations. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|