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In the summer of 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Istanbul when she received a long-awaited phone call from her husband. It had been four agonizing days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Morocco. The lack of communication had been unbearable.

But the news her husband Idris shared was more alarming. He informed her that upon arrival in Morocco, he had been detained and imprisoned. Authorities informed him he would be sent back to China. "Reach out to everyone who can rescue me," he said, before the line went silent.

Life as Ethnic Minority in Exile

The wife, in her early thirties, and Idris, 37, are part of the mostly Muslim community, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang region. Over the last ten years, over a million Uyghurs are estimated to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like going to a place of worship or using a hijab.

The pair had been among thousands of Uyghurs who fled to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find safety in exile, but quickly found they were mistaken.

"Authorities informed me that the Beijing officials warned to close all its industrial plants in the nation if Morocco released him," Zeynure said.

After moving in Istanbul, Zeynure became an English teacher, while Idris started as a translator and artist, assisting to produce Uyghur media and printed works. They had three children and felt free to practice as followers of Islam.

But when one of Idris's best friends, who was employed in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the mid-year of 2021, Idris became fearful. News indicated that Beijing was pressuring Turkey to deport Uyghurs. Idris felt vulnerable 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 stay behind with the children until her husband could request a visa for the family.

A Terrible Error

Leaving Turkey turned out to be a disastrous decision. At the airport, immigration officials pulled him aside for interrogation. "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 trap to me," she recalled. Her worst fears were realized when he was taken off the plane and arrested by border officials.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the global police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had requested for Idris to be placed on the agency's most-wanted "alert list." Zeynure claims Turkish officials allowed him board the flight aware he would be apprehended upon landing in Morocco.

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

Parental Pressure

Shortly after learning of her husband's detention, Zeynure received an unexpected phone call from her family in Xinjiang. She had been cut off from her family since they came to see her in Turkey in 2016 and were imprisoned for a few months upon their going back to China.

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They said, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" she explained. "I knew there must be some police 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. 'Don't say anything negative about China.'"

But with her husband's safety at stake, the quiet-mannered Zeynure was not going to stay quiet. She had been raised seeing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities 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 social media or these platforms. But I had to do something to rescue my husband – I had to tell the reality to the world. Everyone knows Uyghurs sent to China will be tortured or die. They forced me to raise my voice."

Growing Up in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of blissful days spent in the countryside with her elders, who were farmers. "I used to play with the sheep and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that kind of chance again. The relatives around the house and land. 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 "political anthems" and being banned from going to the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is tackling extremism through 'controlling illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, 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 religious journey to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and sent to prison and told they must have some issue in their brain.

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

She finally decided to leave China after returning home from university in another part of China to a growing crackdown on religious freedoms in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She knew we both had made the decision to go overseas and told us maybe we could get together and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away reassured by Idris. "I realized he was very truthful 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 unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within 60 days they were wed and prepared to leave for a different existence in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many Muslims and Uyghurs already residing there, with a similar tongue and shared ethnicity. "It felt like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also support the Uyghur population in exile. "There are many kids now in China being raised without Uyghur traditions or dialect so we think it's our responsibility to not let it disappear," she says.

But their relief 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, threats and violence. But what Idris was faced was a more recent method of control: using China's increasing economic leverage to force other nations to yield to its demands, including detaining and deporting Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the phone call from Idris, and discovering he had an Interpol alert hanging over him, Zeynure knew she only had a short window of chance to try to stop his extradition to China. She immediately contacted as many Uyghur support groups as she could find advertised online in Europe and the US and pleaded for assistance. 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 online platforms. To her amazement, similar protests soon occurred in Morocco calling for Idris's freedom. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his deportation was a issue for the courts to determine.

In early August 2021, Interpol withdrew Idris's red notice after being urged to review his case by human rights groups. But that did not prevent a Moroccan court later deciding he should still be extradited to China. Zeynure says there was huge political influence from Beijing, which made {little sense|