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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. It had been four agonizing days since their last communication, when he was getting ready to take a flight to Casablanca. The silence had been unbearable.

But the update her husband Idris revealed was more alarming. He informed her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been arrested and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Contact anyone who can help me," he pleaded, before the line went silent.

Existence as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, in his late thirties, are part of the mostly Muslim ethnic group, which makes up about 50% of the population in China's north-western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, over a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are reported to have been detained in so-called "re-education camps," where they faced mistreatment for commonplace actions like attending a mosque or using a hijab.

The couple had been among many of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They believed they would find security in their new home, but quickly realized they were wrong.

"I was told that the Beijing officials threatened to shut down all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure explained.

After settling in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris began as a translator and designer, helping to publish Uyghur news and publications. They had three children and felt free to live as Muslims.

But when one of Idris's close friends, who worked in a library containing Uyghur books, was arrested 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 linked to his work with activists and promoting Uyghur culture. He decided to escape to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a visa for the family.

A Terrible Mistake

Departing Turkey turned out to be a terrible mistake. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for questioning. "When he was finally permitted to board the plane, he told me how happy he was that they had let him go, but it felt like a set-up to me," Zeynure recalled. Her deepest concerns were realized when he was taken off the plane and detained by Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to pursue dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed 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 convince her to do what many Uyghurs fear most: challenge China, regardless of the consequences.

Parental Interference

Soon after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure got an surprising phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been separated from her family 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 chilling message. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Perhaps 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 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 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 witnessing women having their head coverings 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 Facebook 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 tortured or die. They forced me to speak out."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has different types of memories of her childhood in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the rural areas with her grandparents, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and chickens. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The family around the home and land. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a book."

The second was as a Muslim Uyghur in Xinjiang, of vacations interrupted by mandatory teachings of "political anthems" and being banned from going to the mosque or observing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing extremism through 'managing unauthorized religious activities' and 'training facilities', but other countries, including the US, say its actions amount to genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to practice her faith in Xinjiang. "Individuals who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some problem in their brain.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their religion and culture. They said 'you should believe in us, we gave you employment and this beautiful living here'," says Zeynure.

She eventually decided to depart China after coming back home from university in Eastern China to a growing repression on religious freedoms 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 meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was immediately reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very honest and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to wed me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were married and ready to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Islamic country with many believers and Uyghurs already residing there, with a comparable tongue and shared ethnicity. "It was like Uyghurs' alternative homeland," says Zeynure. As a teacher and designer, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "We have many children now in China growing up 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 abroad was temporary. Beijing has become a global leader in targeting critics living in exile through the use of electronic surveillance, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a newer method of control: using China's growing financial influence to force other countries to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

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 prevent his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur advocacy organizations as she could find advertised on the internet in Europe and the US and begged for assistance. She was fearless despite China having already demonstrated a willingness to go after the family members of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her surprise, similar protests soon followed in Morocco demanding Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to put out a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

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 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|