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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her residence in Turkey's largest city when she received a desperately anticipated phone call from her husband. It had been four stressful days since their last contact, when he was getting ready to board a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the information her husband Idris shared was even worse. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and jailed. Authorities informed him he would be deported to China. "Reach out to everyone who can help me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the population in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in alleged "re-education camps," where they faced torture for ordinary acts like going to a place of worship or using a hijab.

The couple had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the 2010s. They thought they would find refuge in their new home, but soon discovered they were mistaken.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," she stated.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an language instructor, while Idris started as a translator and designer, assisting to produce Uyghur media and publications. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. Reports indicated that Beijing was urging Turkey to extradite Uyghurs. Idris felt at risk due to his prior arrest, which he suspected was connected to his work with advocates and promoting Uyghur culture. He chose to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had lapsed, had to stay behind with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey proved to be a terrible mistake. At the Istanbul airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "After he was eventually allowed to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had released him, but it felt like a set-up to me," she recalled. Her deepest concerns were confirmed when he was removed from the plane and arrested by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him take the flight knowing he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Family Interference

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her parents in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her relatives since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for several months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a disturbing warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps we can assist you,'" she stated. "I knew there must be some police 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Avoid saying anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at stake, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had grown up seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in public by the police and had been resolved to live in a country with religious freedom.

"Before 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 world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or killed. They pushed me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of opportunity again. The family around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a scene from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations cut short by forced teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions constitute ethnic cleansing. Zeynure says she never felt able to follow her faith in Xinjiang. "People who went on religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her school friends. "She knew we both had made the decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't tell lies 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 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 common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our duty to not let it disappear," she says.

But their sense of safety at locating a secure location abroad was short-lived. Beijing has become a global leader in pursuing dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing financial influence to pressure other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol red notice hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of opportunity to try to prevent his extradition to China. She right away reached out to as many Uyghur support groups as she could find listed on the internet in the EU and the US and pleaded for help. She was brave despite China having already shown a readiness to target the family members of other individuals.

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 demanding Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of 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 significant political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|