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

But the information her husband Idris revealed was more devastating. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities told him he would be extradited to China. "Reach out to anyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Turkey

Zeynure, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the past decade, more than a million Uyghurs are reported to have been imprisoned in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary acts like going to a mosque or using a hijab.

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

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

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure worked as an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and designer, helping to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had a family of three kids and felt able to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who was employed 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 prior arrest, which he believed was linked to his work with advocates and supporting Uyghur heritage. He decided to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could request a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Leaving Turkey proved to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, immigration officials took Idris aside for interrogation. "When he was eventually permitted to board the plane, he told me how relieved he was that they had released him, but it felt like a trap to me," she said. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by border officials.

Over the past decade, China has been using the international police agency Interpol to pursue political refugees and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "red notice list." Zeynure says Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be arrested upon arrival in Morocco.

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

Family Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's arrest, Zeynure received an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they visited her in Turkey in 2016 and were jailed for a few months upon their return to China.

Her parents had a chilling message. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can assist 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. 'Avoid doing anything except feeding your children,' they told me. 'Don't say anything bad about China.'"

But with her husband's life at risk, the softly spoken Zeynure was not going to remain silent. She had been raised seeing women having their hijabs 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 truth to the international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported 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 happy days spent in the countryside with her grandparents, who were agricultural workers. "I used to play with the animals 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 beautiful, like a picture from a story."

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

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education centers', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca abroad were arrested and transferred to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from college in another part of China to a growing repression 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 taken the decision to go abroad and told us perhaps we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I saw he was very honest and reserved, and couldn't be dishonest 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 Islamic country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar tongue and common background. "It felt like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur culture or language so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief at locating a secure location overseas was temporary. Beijing has become a prominent force in targeting critics abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was subjected to was a more recent method of control: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other countries to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Campaigning for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and learning 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 right away reached out to as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to target the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the Moroccan embassy in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were forced to put out a announcement saying his extradition was a matter for the judicial system to determine.

In the start of August 2021, Interpol cancelled 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|