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In July 2021, a Uyghur woman named Zeynure was at her home in Turkey's largest city when she got a long-awaited phone call from her husband. There had been four painful days since their last contact, when he was preparing to board a flight to Casablanca. The lack of communication had been difficult.

But the update her husband Idris delivered was even worse. He told her that upon landing in Morocco, he had been taken into custody and imprisoned. Authorities stated he would be sent back to China. "Contact everyone who can assist me," he said, before the line went dead.

Existence as Uyghurs in Exile

Zeynure, 31 years old, and Idris, 37, are part of the Uyghur ethnic group, which constitutes about half of the residents in China's western Xinjiang province. Over the past decade, more than a 1,000,000 Uyghurs are believed to have been imprisoned in so-called "vocational training camps," where they faced abuse for ordinary actions like attending a mosque or using a headscarf.

The pair had been among many of Uyghurs who escaped to Turkey during the previous decade. They hoped they would find security in their new home, but soon realized they were wrong.

"Authorities informed me that the Chinese government warned to shut down all its industrial plants in the country if Morocco released him," she said.

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

But when one of Idris's best friends, who worked in a library stocking Uyghur books, was detained in the summer of 2021, Idris became fearful. 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 chose to flee to Morocco, but Zeynure, whose Chinese passport had expired, had to remain with the children until her husband could apply for a travel document for the family.

A Terrible Error

Departing Turkey turned out to be a disastrous mistake. At the airport, border control officials pulled him aside for questioning. "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 Moroccan authorities.

Over the last ten years, China has been utilizing the international police agency Interpol to target dissidents and had asked for Idris to be added on the agency's high-priority "alert list." Zeynure says Turkish officials let him take the flight aware he would be arrested upon landing in Morocco.

What followed would convince her to do what many Uyghurs dread most: defy China, regardless of the risks.

Family Pressure

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

Her parents had a chilling warning. "They told me, 'We know your husband is not with you. Maybe we can help you,'" Zeynure 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 remain silent. She had been raised witnessing women having their head coverings ripped off in open by the authorities and had been resolved to live in a country with freedom of belief.

"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 international community. Everyone knows Uyghurs deported to China will be abused or die. They forced me to speak out."

Childhood in Xinjiang

Zeynure has two distinct types of recollections of her early years in Xinjiang. The first was of happy days spent in the rural areas with her elders, who were farmers. "I'd play with the animals and poultry. I don't know if I will ever have that type of opportunity again. The relatives around the home and farm. It was too wonderful, like a picture from a story."

The second was as a religious minority in Xinjiang, of school holidays interrupted by mandatory teachings of "communist songs" and being banned from attending the mosque or practicing Ramadan.

China says it is addressing radicalism through 'managing illegal religious activities' and 'vocational education facilities', but other nations, including the US, say its actions constitute genocide. Zeynure says she never felt free to follow her religious beliefs in Xinjiang. "People who went on pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia were arrested and transferred to jail and told they must have some problem in their mind.

"They wanted Uyghur people to forget their faith and heritage. They said 'you should believe in us, we provided you jobs and this good living here'," says Zeynure.

She finally decided to depart China after coming back home from college in Eastern China to a increasing repression on beliefs in 2011. It was then that she was connected to Idris by one of her classmates. "She was aware we both had taken the choice to go overseas and told us maybe we could meet and go together."

Zeynure says she was right away comforted by Idris. "I saw he was very truthful and shy, and couldn't be dishonest or do anything bad. There were some Uyghur men at university who wanted to marry me, but Idris was unique."

A New Life in Turkey

Within two months they were married and prepared to leave for a new life in Turkey. They knew it was an Muslim-majority country with many believers and Uyghurs already living there, with a similar language and common background. "It was like Uyghurs' second home," says Zeynure. As a educator and creative, they could also help the Uyghur population in diaspora. "We have many kids now in China growing up without Uyghur traditions or language 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 targeting dissidents abroad through the use of electronic surveillance, intimidation and physical assault. But what Idris was faced was a newer tool of repression: using China's growing economic leverage to pressure other nations to yield to its will, including detaining and extraditing Uyghurs it wants to silence.

Fighting for Release

After the call from Idris, and learning he had an Interpol alert against him, Zeynure knew she only had a limited time 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 online in Europe and the US and begged for help. She was brave despite China having already demonstrated a readiness to target the relatives of other targets.

Zeynure started protesting with her children at the diplomatic mission in Istanbul, and sharing updates on online platforms. To her surprise, copycat protests soon followed in Morocco calling for Idris's release. Moroccan officials were compelled to issue a statement saying his extradition was a issue for the courts to decide.

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