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In the summer of 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 contact, when he was preparing to take a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He explained that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Life as Uyghurs in Turkey

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% 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 "vocational training camps," where they faced torture for commonplace acts like attending a mosque or wearing a headscarf.

The couple had joined many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They thought they would find security in their new home, but soon found they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials threatened to close all its factories in the country if Morocco freed him," Zeynure stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an language instructor, while Idris began as a interpreter and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur news and publications. They had a family of three kids and enjoyed free to practice as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris panicked. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he believed was connected to his work with activists and supporting Uyghur culture. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a visa for the whole family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, border control officials took Idris aside for questioning. "When he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a trap to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was removed from the plane and detained by border officials.

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 "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

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

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she explained. "I realized 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 risk, the softly spoken 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 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 Twitter. But I had to do something to save my husband – I had to tell the reality to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be abused or die. They pushed me to raise my voice."

Childhood 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 used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The family around the home and farm. 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 banned from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China claims it is tackling radicalism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training centers', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "People 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 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 coming back home from university in Eastern China to a increasing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had made the decision to go abroad and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

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

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable language and shared background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a teacher and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our duty to not let it die out," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location overseas was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing critics living in exile through the use of monitoring, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent tool of control: using China's growing economic leverage to force other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Freedom

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time of opportunity to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to go after the family members of other individuals.

Zeynure started demonstrating with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing information on social media. To her surprise, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to decide.

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