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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul 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 lack of communication had been torturous.

But the information her husband Idris delivered was more devastating. He explained that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities told him he would be sent back to China. "Call anyone who can rescue me," he urged, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Turkey

The wife, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "vocational training camps," where they faced mistreatment for ordinary actions like attending a place of worship or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find refuge in exile, but soon discovered they were wrong.

"I was told that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its factories in the country if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a translator and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and printed works. They had three children and enjoyed 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 panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior detention, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur heritage. He decided 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 disastrous decision. At the Istanbul airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "After he was eventually allowed to get on the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the past decade, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him board the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, regardless of the risks.

Family Interference

Soon after hearing of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for several months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, '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 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 life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their hijabs forcibly removed in public by the authorities and had been resolved 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 caring for my family; I didn't even have Facebook or Twitter. But I had to do something to save 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 speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct 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 animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity 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 vacations cut short by forced teachings of "political anthems" and being prohibited from going to 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 constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were detained and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their mind.

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

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from university in another part of China to a growing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was introduced to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had made the choice to go overseas and told us perhaps we could get together and go as a group."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything wrong. There were some Uyghur boys at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was different."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared 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 comparable language and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many children now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility 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 targeting dissidents living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent tool of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other nations to bend to its demands, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to suppress.

Fighting for Freedom

After the 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 extradition to China. She right away contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and posting information on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a announcement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to decide.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled Idris's alert after being pressed to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later ruling he should still be sent back to China. Zeynure says there was significant diplomatic pressure from Beijing, which made {little sense|