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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to everyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about half of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, more than a million Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find safety in exile, but quickly realized they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to shut down all its factories in the nation if Morocco freed him," she said.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and artist, helping to publish Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt 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 summer of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his previous arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur culture. He chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the whole family.

A Costly Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "After he was eventually permitted to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had asked for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would lead her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, despite the consequences.

Parental Pressure

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

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can help you,'" she stated. "I realized 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings forcibly removed in open by the police and had been resolved 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 save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent 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 rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that type of chance again. The relatives around the house and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a story."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is addressing extremism through 'controlling unauthorized religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some issue in their mind.

"They aimed for Uyghur people to abandon their faith and culture. They said 'you should trust in us, we provided you employment and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from college in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her school friends. "She was aware we both had taken the choice 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 realized he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't tell lies or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

Fresh Start in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and designer, 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 duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a place of safety abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of repression: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to bend to its will, including arresting and deporting Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed online in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already shown a willingness to go after the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and posting updates on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his deportation was a matter for the courts to decide.

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