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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Istanbul when she got a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The silence had been difficult.

But the information her husband Idris revealed was even worse. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and jailed. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can assist me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been detained in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace acts like attending a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The pair had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find refuge in exile, but quickly found they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Chinese government threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, helping 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 containing Uyghur books, was arrested in the summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he suspected was linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape 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 Costly Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What happened next would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: challenge China, regardless of the consequences.

Parental Pressure

Soon after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist you,'" she explained. "I knew there must be some police there with them and just pretended 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. 'Avoid saying anything negative 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 hijabs forcibly removed in open by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"Before 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 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 sent to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were agricultural workers. "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 home and land. It was too beautiful, like a scene from a book."

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

China claims it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on religious journey to Mecca abroad were detained and transferred to prison and told they must have some problem in their mind.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern 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 taken the decision to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go as a group."

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

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable tongue and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "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 disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a place of safety abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of repression: using China's growing financial influence to pressure other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his deportation to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after 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 announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the judicial system 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 ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|